The Ballad of Two
by Jay Phoenix
Summary: World famous wrestler, Ember, embarks on a journey that is a physical tournament and internal discovery.
1. Don't fear the Reaper

**The ballad of two**

/ / /

_Previously___

Just shy of two years ago, as the ashes of the fourth annual GTT were cooling with Doctor Curiosity's name on everyone's lips, a different name … an unknown name … began to be whispered as the man known only as Ember made his debut in the WWA.

With his past as shrouded in mystery as the latex mask that covered it shrouded his face, all that anyone knew about Ember was that which he allowed them to know. Which was next to nothing, even going as far as to state that the mask did not hide the truth of his identity but instead the mask _**was**__ his identity. Preferring to let his actions speak for him he made his way slowly, yet surely, within the rankings of his home fed while taking small steps into the wider arena of the PTC. Appearances in tournaments such as the Infinite Gauntlet and Seven of the Best may not have brought triumph to Ember's door but it did bring knowledge of the masked man to a wider audience – an audience that muttered amongst themselves that for an unknown, for a rookie, Ember had a confidence and ability that was unexpectedly well developed._

A year ago, to the day, Ember too his first step, following the trail of those who had passed before, into PTC's pre-eminent tournament. The GTT. One hundred and twenty eight people and Ember managed to make it to the last sixteen before being ousted by a man whose name was synonymous with the PTC itself. Seymour Almasy.

Due to the calm way in which Ember responded to this loss, and the fact that he had claimed to be both seeing and hearing a female that no-one else could, the powers that be within the WWA decided that Ember would require medical clearance to wrestle and as such he found himself under the psychiatric care of a doctor who – despite the incredulous WWA's officials protestations – claimed that he was fit and well enough to compete.

Which he did. One year, again to the day, after he first stepped foot inside a wrestling ring Ember lifted the WWA heavyweight title as his own and, with his partner Khaled, went on a trail of rampage throughout the federation. His ego, however, was to bring about his own downfall and with the title and the mask both on the line he stepped foot inside the ring and did something completely unexpected.

He lost.

His confidence broken and his very 'identity' denied to him within the WWA Ember fell into a downward spiral of loss after loss. With the spectre of the female that no-one else could see constantly taunting and cajoling him Ember walked away from the WWA and from wrestling itself.

… until history repeated itself and the invitation from the PTC arrived on his door. An invitation to take part in the GTT.

With his face now clad in a featureless ivory-white … as white as his skin … mask, that was, he claimed, a gift of the woman only he could see, Ember is a different man – colder, calmer, more detached - than he who first stepped out of the darkness two years previously.

Just who he is now, though, awaits to be seen.

/ / /

**Part One: Don't fear the reaper**

The file landed on the desk with a thump, sending the pile of already precariously balanced paperwork cascading down in a miniature landslide onto the man behind the desk, just as he bit into oversized burger. The look of adoration in his eyes, as he gazed at the two pounds of ground beef sandwiched between toasted buns and wrapped in grease-proof paper that was almost translucent with the hot fat that it contained, was replaced by shock, then panic before finally – when the realisation that he had to choose between attempting to stop the flood of months of paperwork or dropping his burger – settling on resignation. As the paperwork continued to fall off the edge of the desk and onto the floor where it landed and grouped in chaotic piles that would take days to sort out again, he swallowed noisily and with obvious relish.

"You eat like a pig, Joey, you know that?" Sitting down on the near side of the desk the grey-haired speaker rearranged his suit jacket as he eyed the trail of ketchup on the fat man across from him.

"Screw you Mike." A sliver of burger almost fell out, as Joey spat the insult, but was rescued before it was lost forever, sucked back into the ivory-framed maw that in some places would have been called a mouth but on this man, Joey Russo, it was fairer to call it an organic garbage disposable system.

"That is screw you Captain!"

Twenty-seven years of friendship shone through the insults and transcended even the barriers of rank. When they had entered the police academy together both Joseph Russo and Michael Silver may have had dreams about where they would be all these years later but neither one had actually been thinking any further ahead than just making it through the academy. Two strangers from very different backgrounds had quickly become students together, then colleagues and then friends. Neither could remember exactly when that relationship had changed and become something more, a bond as strong as forged steel, just as neither could recall the amount of times that the other had saved their life. When the day came that Mike had finally made captain, leaving his partner behind as lieutenant, the only change was in the pay that each took home. The rank on their I.D. didn't come between them. It simply didn't matter anymore; nothing could shake the foundations laid over such a long period of time. Even Mike's wife of twenty years joked about how Joey was really the one married to her husband.

"Sorry, screw you **captain**" Joey drawled as he threw a lazy salute Mike's way, taking the opportunity to lick the grease from his fingers before noticing the splash of bright red on his tie.

"Damn it!" he barked, dropping the half-devoured burger to his desk as he held the tie up, glaring at the blot of offending ketchup as if it was sentient and somehow consciously to blame for its location.

"It's not like you to worry about how you look," Mike pointed out with a smile, his perfect teeth flashing. The years had been kind to him he knew that, with only his grey hair showing the passage of his years. Most people, when they looked at him, saw a tall and well-dressed man, obviously fit and healthy, and assumed that he was about ten years younger than his true age. Looks, though, could be deceptive he also knew and he only had to look across the desk and take in the visage of his best friend to se the proof of that. Slightly shorter than Mike himself, Joey stood at just shy of six foot in height but was nearly seventy pounds heavier. He had always actually been heavier than Mike but while at one time the bulk that had given him the nickname of 'the Bull' in the academy had been muscle, it had now nearly all turned to fat. Still an imposing figure, with his mop of dark hair over a once strong jaw and a neck that was as wide as most regular guy's thighs, Joey looked like he had added the missing years from Mike's age onto his own.

"I don't give a damn about the tie," Joey said as he sucked the glob of ketchup of it and smacked his lips, "but this is fine ketchup, too good to waste!"

"Like I said, Joey" Mike quipped, not bothering to hold back his laughter, "you are a pig!"

"As much as I would love to chew the fat with you all day, Mike, I would much prefer to chew my lunch. What can I do for ya?"

"Lunch?" Mike asked, incredulously. "It is just after ten o'clock in the morning!"

"You say tom-ah-toe," Joey said, magnanimously, "and I say tom-ay-toe." With two quick, wolfish, bites he demolished the remainder of the burger and sat back with his arms crossed over his stomach, a self-satisfied smile on his face.

"Actually, what I 'say' my friend is simple," Mike said as he picked up the file that had caused the original avalanche of paper and handed it over to Joey, "and that is that I have a case I want to you handle." Sensing the change in the conversation Joey's smile disappeared and he became all business, one eyebrow raised quizzically as he reached out to take the proffered documents.

"Special delivery Mike?" Joey asked, "Not like you to normally hand deliver assignments, to what do I owe the pleasure?" Before Mike could answer the question they were both interrupted as a discreet knock rang out and a face peered around the door with a hesitant smile.

"Ah, there you are David," Mike stated in recognition, "come on in."

"Thank you sir" replied the younger man as he walked into the room and stood, almost at attention, behind the captain. His dark skin almost seemed to gleam with an inner light, and his head was shaved close to the skin leaving only a small goatee around his mouth to show that his hair was as ebony as his skin. A dark grey three-piece suit, obviously new, was worn with as much pride as a uniform.

"David Johnson just made detective Joe," Mike said as way of an introduction, "top of his class and a record that is just as impressive. Johnson, this is Joey Russo." Reaching across the desk David Johnson shook hands with Joey, quickly hiding the grimace of distaste as he came away with a layer of grease on his palm. Whatever Joey was going to say in reply was quickly lost as he glanced down at the almost forgotten file in his hand and his face became incredulous.

"What the Hell is this Mike?" Flicking open the cover he scanned some of the sheets and his forehead creased in an obvious frown, a sight that obviously wasn't new to Mike who just sat there, patiently. "This is a fuckin' cold case – excuse my French kid!"

"No problems sir, "Johnson said with a small smile, "my grandmother speaks the same dialect of French as you do." The attempt at levity didn't work and Johnson quickly silenced himself and took a discreet step back as Joey slammed one hand down on his desk, ignoring the younger man, the sound reverberating through the small office like a clap of thunder.

"Not just a cold case, Mike" he spluttered in disbelief, "but a missing person case, from two years ago, too!"

"I am aware of that Joey," Mike sated calmly, "I mean I am the one who gave it to you after all. Is there a problem?"

"Yes there is a 'problem' Mike, "Joe continued, his anger not dropping, "I haven't worked a missing person kid since I was a rookie like this kid. I have spent the last six years in homicide and you know it, so why the Hell am I getting this case?!"

For a moment neither man spoke, neither man moved, just sat starting at each other. Joe's eyes were closed slightly, his brows furrowed and a pulse in his forehead visibly pounding, as it kept beat with his heart while Mike sat sedately, hands steepled in front of him. Forcing himself to calm down Joey relaxed, slightly, and taking this as his cue Mike leant forward slightly.

"I could just say that you have this case because I am your boss, Joey," Mike reasoned gently but firmly, "but we both know that isn't the reason, don't we?" A small nod from Joe was the only response that Mike got, but it was also the only response that he needed. "The fact of that matter is that while this case is high profile simply because of who is missing and the press attention that it got I wouldn't normally send my best homicide detective out on this case, even despite that fact that the person who lodged it still phones me once a week without fail to see if there is any change in things."

This bit of news caused a different reaction in Joey, as he realised that in most missing person cases the family almost gave up hope after the first year, let alone after two. To have someone still chasing it this long afterwards was something quite unique … and if it wasn't that fact prompting Mike to get him to look into it, then there must be something bigger.

/ / /

_There must be something bigger_, he thought to himself as he sat in the darkness of his apartment, listening to his breathing that came in slightly ragged gasps, his body attempting to regain some equilibrium after the rigorous exercise it had just been put through, _something more to life than just this_.

Feeling the muscles in his stomach protest, the strain of sit-ups not even starting to subside, Ember groaned slightly and then bit it off. The pain in his stomach was nothing compared to that which he felt across his chest where the taut skin felt like it was on fire. Not even two weeks had passed since he had woken up in his bathroom to find that someone had carved a message, literally, into his body. Two words that sent a chill up his spine in contrast to the heat of the scabbing flesh.

"I'm back."

Shaking the thought physically out of his head Ember lay flat on his back and started to do another repetition of the exercises he always found himself doing prior to a match. As comfortable as an old pair of shoes he fell back into the easy rhythm of movement that didn't require conscious thought. He had been doing this same routine now for over two years and while it definitely kept his body in shape it also allowed him the luxury of thinking things through without wasting time. So, as his body slipped easily into the mechanical movements of sit-up, press-up and crunch his mind slipped into its steam of consciousness musings.

_Is there more to life than this?_

Why do I do it … why do we do it?

Last year one hundred and twenty eight people put themselves forward for the ritual humiliation and circus that has replaced the gladiatorial arenas in the public's affection and this year nearly one hundred have done it again.

Blood, sweat and tears are not enough for them; being in the best shape of a lifetime – or even two lifetimes – is not enough for them. They want something new, they want something different, oh yes they want something intangible. Each and everyone of us are trying to be that x-factor that is required, never realising – or at least never admitting – that we are as blind as each other in the search for it.

Ninety six people go in through the revolving door but only one lucky soul is fortunate enough to make it into the building while the others spiral out of control and are slung out, into the gutter, to lie with all the other crap and debris.

For everyman that proceeds closer and closer to the Promised Land, the ultimate victory, there is another that is swept to one-side. Forgotten about. Discarded.

For every Curiosity and Rollins there is a Desolation or a Sam Wolack. For every man that beats the mountain, and reaches the pinnacle, there are those that never quite reach the summit; never even see it.

I am not like them, though, I fall into neither category. I cannot claim to have stood at the top, on the shoulder of giants, but neither can anyone claim to have swept me aside and watch me plummet to the ground on broken wings. I may not have reached the summit but I _**have**__ seen it, I have been so close that if I could have just reached out one more inch I would have been able to touch it._

… but I didn't; I couldn't.

That is both a curse and a blessing. To be so close but still so far leaves a fire in my soul that I cannot extinguish, a hunger for something that I cannot even describe because I have never tasted it but – there is always a but – it also gives me an advantage over those that do not know what I know; who have never stod where I have or been as close as I.

So just like for every winner there will be a loser … for every Curiosity there will be a Wolack … there is also something else. For every person who fails without even getting as close as you can without winning, for every wrestler that doesn't know that the next step to greatness is just around the corner, there will be someone else, literally. Some _**one**__. Just one._

Me.

For every Dorian Ryan there will be Ember.

The sad thing is that the poor child doesn't even know what he is fighting for, he has never stepped out onto the pinnacle only to find it pulled away at the last moment, he has never been as close to that height as you can be.

He never will now, either.

I have done things that most people would shirk from, things that when the reaper takes me he would deny me salvation for, and I have never thought twice about doing them. I would do them all, heinous, as some people would view them, many times over if I needed to. All to once more reach the dizzying heights that I yearn for; all to reclaim my wings and burn my path through the sky.

For Dorian Ryan to get a glimpse of that vision, for him to taste the sweet mana of victory, he has to deny me the same.

… and I will not be denied, for this time things have changed!

/ / /

"Things have changed," Mike said quietly, "and you have the background that I think is needed to handle this case properly Joey."

"… what background?" Joey asked, slightly off-balance, as he knew that he hadn't worked that case at all so had no background with it.

"The missing person was a wrestler, Joey," Mike stated simply, "and you know more about that industry than anyone else here"

"Was?"

The quiet question shook both Joey and Mike, forgetting as they had that the young detective, David Johnson, was even still in the room. Leaning forward the police captain, Mike Silver, tapped the file softly as he nodded.

"Yes, 'was'," he confirmed, stressing the word, as he looked back towards Joey. "They found a weapon, a straight razor, wrapped in a blood soaked towel. The blood was matched to our missing wrestler, Joey, which is why this is no longer a missing persons case – cold or not – but murder."

/ / /

To be continued …


	2. Prophets and fortune cookies

**The ballad of two****  
Part two  
Prophets and fortune cookies**

/ / /

"There is still something that I don't understand."

The silence in the room was broken. To Joey Russo and Mike Silver, best friends for over twenty years and career cops both, the silence had lasted the eternity of an eye blink. Time could be strange like that. Lost in the moment neither Joey nor Mike had noticed the passage of time, or the lack thereof; for them there was nothing but the moment. A split second or an hour could easily have passed them by and they would not have noticed the difference. For David Johnson, however, an 'outsider' in both the sense of the familiarity between the two men that was almost tangible and in terms of whatever had passed between them, unspoken, the time had passed uncomfortably.

An intelligent man, top of his class – every class – since junior high, David Johnson knew that the problem was his own. The chip on his shoulder, so to speak, had been there for as long as he could remember. No matter where he was, or what he was doing, he felt that he had something to prove. Felt that he had to live up to the hype that surrounded him. Being the best in his field simply wasn't enough for him, coming first didn't satisfy his urge to compete; he still felt that he had something to prove. Worse than they he thought that everyone around him felt that he had something to prove as well. The irony wasn't lost on him though, he had never really had to work to get where he was, it had all came easily – too easily perhaps – and so it was fair to assume that he would be confident; egomaniacal perhaps. The truth was that he wasn't. Quite the opposite in fact.

… and so to stand ignored in the shadows, figuratively speaking, while two giants of his chosen profession seemed to telepathically communicate about his very first case, grated on him. The little voice in his head, the same one that always goaded him to 'try harder', 'do better', pushed him into speaking a little louder than he intended and he could feel the flush rising up from his neck to encroach across his ebon cheeks as both men slowly turned to look at him.

/ / /

Both men turned to look at him and Ember as he opened the door, the bell above it chiming out its own welcome and he couldn't help but smile, a little, at their reaction. Even after all this time he still took delight, admittedly and unashamedly perverse but delight nonetheless, in seeing the rapid change of emotion that played across people's faces when they saw him.

A blank expression was normally the first thing that he saw, whenever people noticed him. Either that or expectation, a word of greeting already being formed on lips that were almost smiling in the anticipation of seeing someone they knew. The word would be choked off, swallowed whole, and the smile covered up, aborted like a deformed embryo when they realised that Ember was not who they were expecting. Not even close to **what** they were expecting. The clichéd comedy double take came after that, but in real life it worked so much better than on the sliver screen. No matter how many movies Ember watched, how many books he read, he had never found anything that could even come close to the reactions of reality. Then again when the day came that a faceless writer could actually capture the myriad intangibles, the endless potentials, of life itself Ember knew that perhaps he would gladly change his existence from reality to fiction. Thankfully that day hadn't yet come and so he knew that he just had to get on with it. Ignoring the veiled look of shock, the fear that was quickly masked behind a veneer – thin and already cracking – of welcome and civility, on the faces of the waiters … reactions that he had seen play out so many times that he could predict it with greater success than even Nostradamus himself … Ember fixed a façade of a smile on his own face, knowing that the shape of his lips were visible through the material that covered his face, cowl like. Knowing, too, that due to its malleability and colouring the term 'cowl' was exactly apt as the mask resembled nothing less than a featureless layer of skin.

Allowing the door to close slowly behind him, cocking his head slightly, listening to the bell chime out once more, he walked into the darkened foyer of the Chinese restaurant.

"Can I help you?"

It was impressive, Ember silently admitted to himself, the level of control the older of the two Oriental men had over himself. The initial shock of seeing a man who resembled, literally, an apparition walk into their midst had not shaken him as much as the younger who was still staring, wide-eyed, at the alabaster skinned man dressed all in black. Even the elder's voice hardly shook, and Ember gave a small nod of acknowledgement as he approached them both. One thing that he respected, possibly the only thing, was strength. Not physical strength, for any idiot could lift enough weights and train his muscles to obey him, but mental strength, emotional control, was different. Forcing a mind to stay calm in the face of fear, demanding control over every action, and reaction, was something that he had devoted time to mastering and seeing that – even if only a fraction of his own ability – mirrored in others, was something rare.

"A table for one please, zu fu." The elder Chinese man's eyes widened slightly as he heard the honorific term spoken by the man standing in front of him. The fact that most Chinese had long forgotten the respect owed to their elders while this man didn't surprised him enough, but the fact that his dialect was as pure as if he had been born in China himself threw him nearly as much. With a low bow he stepped forward and indicated a corner table, shrouded in a cubicle. Taking his jacket from Ember, the older man draped it over one arm as he folded the preferred scarf and placed it inside the hat that followed. Ember sat down, pretending to ignore the stares of the younger Chinese man now that his concealing layers were off. Steepling his fingers in front of him, casting a shadow over the small stone-like object that sat beside the ornate chop-sticks, Ember paused, resting his arms on the table.

/ / /

Resting his arms on the table in front of him Joey sighed and rubbed one large hand across his face, his skin rubbing against his five o'clock shadow – though it was only shortly after eleven in the morning – sounding like sandpaper. He had only met the kid … _God_ he thought to himself, _you are getting old if you are calling him a kid_ … a week ago and already he was grating on his nerves. It wasn't anything personal about the kid … _young man_, he corrected himself silently … it was just that he wasn't used to having to work with anyone else. Over the years since Mike had been promoted he had gotten used to working alone. Seen as a maverick by some, and as an anachronism that simply refused to realise that its time had not only come but also passed, to others, Joey Russo hadn't had a partner.

Until now.

Until this case.

Until one week ago when his best friend, who also happened to be his boss, had walked into his office and dumped not just a case that he didn't want to deal with but also a partner that he didn't want. Period. All of his protestations had fallen on deaf ears, though, and while he had run the full gamut of arguments – from calculating to petulant and from irate to pleading – none of them had made any difference. Mike had just sat there, in silence, and waited until Joey had run out of steam and excuses. Then, with a small smile, he had simply asked if Mike had finally finished and when he got a curt nod in response he said that things were settled. The case, and the rookie, were his.

… and for the last week both had given him the mother of all headaches.

"What don't you understand, Davey?" Joey couldn't help the irritation that came out with the words and just hoped that Davey hadn't heard it but, when he looked across the table and caught the disapproving glance of his captain, Mike, he knew that he probably had.

"Listen kid, I don't mean to snap, but we have gone over this time and time again and haven't got anywhere." It was as close to an actual apology that Joey had come to giving to anyone in nearly five years. Joey and Davey stared at each other across the table, and for a moment neither spoke and then, with a cough to clear his throat, Davey broke the strained silence again.

"Look, I understand that we have a missing persons report from nearly two years ago," he began, somewhat hesitantly, "and that there was a weapon found covered in his blood just last week …" He trailed off, looking from the face of Joey to Mike and then back again, as he held up a thin file in front of him, staring at it perplexed.

"But?"

"… but" Davey replied to Joey's prompt, "that is all we have. No body, no other evidence, nothing at all to go on." He stopped again, opening the file and staring in bemusement and the very few pieces of paper contained within. "I just don't understand how, if this guy really has been killed, we haven't found any other trace at all. It just doesn't seem …"

"… yes?" Joey sat back, a gleam of interest in his eyes as he silently willed the younger man to follow his train of thought through to the end. He had read his file and knew that, on paper, he was mean to be something of a prodigy. Everyone that had taught him, or worked with him, said that they knew that he was special and that he was a name to remember but Joey didn't take too much stock in that. Never one to follow the crowd, or listen to platitudes, he preferred to make his own decisions based on what he knew for himself. So, instead of just accepting the prophecies of Davey's past Joey wanted to see the reality of his future. For the past week he hadn't seen anything special in the younger man at all. Diligent and punctual yes, but nothing that lived up to even half the hype that surrounded him. Until now. Finally he was thinking for himself, outside of the box of his training, and doing something that the textbooks hadn't taught him.

"It just doesn't make any **sense**." Davey almost spat the final word out, as if he had to force himself to question the evidence when neither of the other two had. His world had always been neatly ordered, every question had a ready answer, and the last week had rocked the foundations of his belief system to the core and challenged him in ways that he had never been challenged before. Looking at them both he realised that they were staring at him intently and another flush of embarrassment coursed across him.

"Sorry, I will shut up now."

"The fuck you will," Joey exploded and then grinned, "'scuse my French, but no you won't shut up kid. Keep going."

The tension in David Johnson left him with a laugh and he sat back, choosing his words carefully, before a growing sense of confidence allowed him to speak more clearly.

"If someone really did use a straight razor to kill our missing wrestler, and was careless enough to discard it where it would be easily found," he said confidently, "then where …"

"… is the body?" Joey finished the sentence for Davey and then smiled as they saw the look of shock on his face.

"Hey, don't look so surprised. While I admire the fact that you are thinking this through, kid," Joey said sincerely, "we have already thought about that ourselves."

"So, what did you come up with?" Davey asked, any irritation about being two steps behind the others forgotten in his desire to satisfy his curiosity.

"We don't know," Joey admitted, sheepishly, "you are right, it **doesn't** make sense."

/ / /

"It doesn't make any sense."

Ember pushed the plate of almost untouched food away from him and picked up the small stone-like object. Holding it in one hand he caressed the creases on its surface, turning it over as his eyes followed the furrows that never seemed to end.

"Sorry sir," the young waiter said quietly, breaking Ember out of his reverie "is there something wrong with the food?" In the hour that Ember had been in the restaurant the waiter had become, if not more comfortable, less agitated in his presence. The moment that he had seen Ember raise the mask slightly, exposing his mouth so that he could sip at the glass of chilled water that was brought to him, was the moment that he seemed to realise that he wasn't facing one of the many demons from his childhood stories. Even despite this he wasn't fully convince, simply because the colour of the man's skin was the same ivory grey, almost translucent, as the mask itself.

"No, it isn't the food, child," Ember said, softly, still turning the object over in his hand, "it is just me. I don't seem to have any appetite at the moment." Holding the object up so that the waiter could see it clearly Ember looked up at him and, even though his eyes were covered by the mask and hidden behind the white hair that feel in waves, curtain like, in front of him the waiter knew that he was looking directly into his eyes. The young man shivered suddenly, unable to help the sudden thought that the strange man in front of him was not just staring into his eyes, but his very soul.

"Do you know why these are served?" Ember asked. The question obviously took the waiter by surprise, so unexpected, so mundane, was it, and when he suddenly realised that he hadn't misheard but that he was indeed being asked about something as simple as the cookie he relaxed slight and smiled.

"Yes sir," he said with a grin, "they are to keep the customers happy. When they get a good fortune the tip more." The wink that he gave to Ember made him look even more youthful than before and Ember sighed inwardly, sitting back into the chair and just staring, quietly, at the young man until his smile faded.

"… and what happens if they don't get a good fortune," Ember asked, the hint of disdain in his voice clearly evident, "what if the prophecy for their future isn't to their liking?" The waiter looked around him, realising that he was alone in the main restaurant with this strange man. His grandfather was still in the kitchen and there were no other customers. The fortune cookies were meant to be a secret of the family but he realised that he had already said to much and also knew that he couldn't stop himself from telling the strange man anything – everything – that he wanted to know.

"That cannot happen, sir," he said, trying to force a smile to his face but failing and looking sick instead, "we make the cookies here and fill them with only favourable fortunes. We check each one and ensure that it is a good fortune. That way the customers will always get something that makes them happy."

"You will have gold pieces by the bushel," Ember quoted in a falsetto voice; "your planning will bring rich rewards". He slammed his hand down on the table, the fortune cookie shattering into a thousand pieces beneath his palm, as he almost growled at the young waiter. "You peddle those sort of lies to the weak and the witless, who are only too pleased to get those sort of empty platitudes rather than face the possibility of something that they don't like!" Standing up, his hand still firmly pressed on top of the shattered remnants of the cookie, Ember leant forwards, his face nearly touching the young man who stood there motionless.

"Your ancestors used these little cookies – these seemingly innocuous and meaningless morsels – to carry secret messages that would coordinate the overthrow of their oppressors," Ember whispered, almost sibilantly, "they put messages of worth and meaning inside these things, messages that led to the demise of the Mongul rule in China and the rise of the Ming Dynasty. You took a weapon of a whole generation, you took a real prophecy of change and turned it into nothing more than a stale cookie with a trite platitude to make you money!"

"We just wanted to give people what they wanted."

The quiet voice from behind them both stopped both Ember and the waiter and they turned to see the older man standing at the entrance to the kitchen, holding Ember's coat. Suddenly Ember almost seemed to deflate, the sudden and bizarre anger drained out of him, and he walked away from the table, grabbing his coat and hat from the older man on the way past. Taking a handful of notes out of his pocket he pushed them into the younger man's hand.

"Here you go," he said tiredly, "your tip from a 'happy' customer." Walking straight to the door he pulled it open, the bell chiming above him.

"Wait," the young waiter started, "don't you want your fortune?" His only answer was the chiming of the bell again, mockingly, as the door closed behind the departing Ember who didn't even glance backwards. Looking down at the table, and the debris from the crushed fortune cookie, the waiter blinked and his face went ashen as he saw the small, creased piece of paper that had been inside it.

… and realised that it was completely blank.

/ / /

To be continued


	3. Steps

The ballad of two  
Part three  
Steps

/ / /

The steam curled up and out of the mugs as the hot coffee filled it. With a plastic smile fixed on her bright red lips the waitress looked through the two men, just two more faces in a never ending parade of cheap tips in her opinion, that sat at the table and then walked away without a backward glance; their breakfast orders already hastily scrawled in her greased stained pad.

"You know there **is** a Starbucks nearby." Wiping away the remnants of the previous table occupant's meal – whatever it had been, it was too hard to tell – David Johnson looked almost pleadingly at the man across the table from him, the actual words that his mouth spoke not actually saying what he was thinking. _Get me out of this rat infested Hell hole before I catch something and die a horrible and slow death_ was more like what he was really wanting to say. Unfortunately for him he had been brought up to never complain.

"Why would you want to go somewhere like that," Joey Russo said as he nosily slurped at the scalding hot coffee, years of practise giving him an almost asbestos quality to his tongue, heat proofing it, "when you can get twice as much for half the price here?"

"That is what I am worried about," David said under his breath as he saw – he was _sure_ he saw – something scuttle under a table out of the corner of his eye, "dysentery more than likely."

"Sorry?"

"Oh nothing," David said with a sigh, sipping at his coffee with a wince as the heated liquid tried its best to take a layer of skin off his tongue. "How do you know this place anyway?" It had been at Joey's request that they had met here. Three hours ago, just shy of six o'clock in the morning, he had been awoken by his cell phone vibrating across his bedside cabinet and in his still sleep filled brain he hadn't been quite able to grab it at the first attempt. When he finally flipped it open it took a couple of seconds to place the gravel filled voice on the other end and even more to realise that he was being given an address to meet up at. When he closed the phone Joe Russo's voice still echoed in his head.

"I don't," Joe stated simply, his attention fully caught up in the approaching waitress and the two plates that she carried towards the table, "never been here before." He held up one hand to forestall any other questions as his eyes followed the plates as they were placed down in front of them with a clatter. Before the yellow yolk of the soft fried egg had even stopped wobbling Joe Russo had a forkful of bacon in his mouth. David Johnson stared at the man in front of him, the same way he would have stared at a car crash as a child – horrified by what he saw, knowing that he should look away, but … somehow … not able to – and then down at his own plate. Picking up a single slice of toast, the one that wasn't coated in something that he couldn't quite identify, he nibbled at the edge of it and waited until, with a lusty sigh, Joe swallowed his first mouthful.

"So why did we meet here then?" David said quickly, interjecting the question before his new partner could fill his mouth once more. Joe's fork stopped, less than a millimetre from the next rasher of bacon, and he glanced up at David, his face incredulous.

"I thought that I told you," he said, almost apologetically, "this is where it happened."

/ / /

_This is where it happened._

Yes, people will watch the tapes in months and years to come and think that it all happened there.

In the ring.

They will see Ryan and myself go toe to toe and then they will see it. The thing that Ryan, obviously, didn't. They will see the move, the kick to the face, which took him off his feet and onto his back. They may even count along with the referee for the three seconds that will live on forever in poor little Damien's memory.

They will assume that, as my hand was raised in victory, that _**that**__ was where it happened._

Where it all began.

They would be wrong.

It happened – this journey of mine – a lot longer than just one week ago, and it didn't happen inside the ring itself.

No, it happened here.

Inside my mind.

They say that every journey begins with but a single step and I believe that. I have to. You see that is how my journey began, with a single step. The funny thing is that it wasn't even my own step. It was someone else's.

… and it was a misstep too.

If _**he**__ had just moved right instead of left; if __**he**__ had just been a fraction of a second slower, or faster; if __**he**__ had just looked up and reacted slightly quicker._

If … if … if.

So many 'ifs' to consider, and all of them leading to the only thing that is of any importance at all.

Me.

My life.

My very existence.

One small step, one wrong foot, and _**he**__ was gone and I was here. As simple as that. For so many years I had been denied, I had lived in the shadows … in __**his**__ shadow … and then with one swift, sharp, blow it was done._

As the blood flowed and the light went out of _**his**__ eyes I could fill myself, finally, come alive. No longer would I be in the darkness, no longer would my voice go unheard as __**his**__ filled all their ears._

No, it was my time.

My existence.

My life.

Mine.

To do with what I wanted. To live as I had always dreamed.

… and what did I do? What am I still doing?

Walking in _**his**__ steps._

Following _**his**__ journey._

Standing in _**his**__ shadow._

Two years ago it all began in my mind. I knew what I had to do. I had thought about it for so long, so very long, and it was all so clear. Time after time I played through it in my head until it filled my every moment; until I couldn't tell if I had already done it or was still thinking about it. When the time finally came, when chance provided the opportunity, I took it.

I struck.

It was the only time that I walked my own path, the only time I started my own journey.

Now I walk the path of two, _**his**__ and mine. Sometimes I don't remember where they separate, if they ever did, but I know that one day – soon – they will. One day – soon – I will step out of the shadows and __**he**__ will be gone completely._

I even know how I have to do it. I have to finish _**his**__ journey, I have to walk __**his**__ path, and I have to take that one, extra, step. I have to go further than __**he**__ did, I have to do better than __**he**__ did. I have to be better than __**him**__._

I have to take _**his**__ journey and complete it._

Then I will be free.

Free of him.

Free of _**his**__ ghost._

So what the people that watch the tapes in years to come fail to understand is that Ryan is – was – unimportant. He is nothing at all. Meaningless. So is Adams, though he doesn't even seem to realise – nor care – the magnitude of what exactly it is that he is involved with.

Maybe that is a good thing?

Perhaps Adams being preoccupied with everything other than the battle in front of him, the tournament, is a blessing in disguise for him. When all that is left of his prophecy, as he lies flat on his back beneath me, is a three second accolade from a referee and the realisation that his predictions have fallen as flat as Nostradumas himself, perhaps then he will be able to go on with his life and find that which he searches for.

At least there we have something in common. We are both searching for something. His lies outside the ring, while mine lies inside it.

At least for now.

It won't be obvious to the watchers, to the voyeurs, at all. They won't realise, as Adams falls to the side just like Ryan did, that he is just the second of many. Well actually the second of six I suppose.

For you see while each journey begins with but a single step it is also true that each destination begins with a journey.

But, perhaps, it doesn't end with just the one.

My destination is not the winning of this tournament, no, that is just the first step.

/ / /

"The first step is to revisit everything," Joe Russo said as he swallowed a belch, "'scuse me. Which is why we came here." The diner was behind them, the breakfast quickly demolished – both of them by Joey, David hadn't managed anything more than a slice of toast and some coffee – and now they were standing out on the street in the shadow of a large apartment block. Traffic was light on the road in front of them, and not too many people were visible.

"… and this is where the razor was found?" David asked, looking around him. When Joey had explained to him, through a mouthful of egg that he had tried really hard not to look at, that they had come to this area to look around the scene where the suspected murder weapon was found, David had felt a sense of excitement. While still in uniform he had been mostly involved with traffic duties and the occasional low priority crime. Burglary, assault, even some drug busts. Never a murder, though, never the 'big one'.

"Just over there," Joey said, pointing over to an alleyway in which dumpsters and garbage cans were visible, "with the rest of the trash." Flipping open the file that he had carried under one arm he scanned through the pages, briefly, and then nodded once before crossing the road and moving towards the alley itself. Keeping pace with him, David felt his excitement mounting.

"So, do you think that we will find something that they missed?"

"It is possible, kid," Joey rumbled as he stopped at the entrance to the alley, peering into its gloomy depths with a look of distaste on his face, "the guys that found the knife were beat cops, not homicide, so it is possible that they missed something."

"What about he CSI guys?" David asked and then swallowed, hard, as the stench from the garbage hit him. For the second time that hour, the first being when he sat in the diner, he was glad that he hadn't ate any of the breakfast knowing that if he had he would be seeing it again.

"You watch too much TV kid," Joey laughed, "this isn't Vegas and John Lamont, the forensics guy who swept this place, sure ain't no Grissom. Now, breathe through your mouth." Joey had turned to look at David as he spoke and saw the tightness around the rookie's eyes and mouth as he tried to process the smell of the place.

"What?" David hadn't quite been listening, focussing instead on keeping the contents of his stomach, what there was of it, inside where they belonged.

"Don't breathe through your nose," Joey said, reaching out and squeezing David's shoulder kindly, "just your mouth. It will help with the smell until you get used to it."

"I don't think that I will get used to this," David said through gritted teeth as he tried to follow the instructions and breathe through his mouth, "it smells like someone died in here."

"… that is what we are here to find out kid." Joey said softly, turning back to look into the alleyway.

"Oh yeah," David said, embarrassed, "sorry."

Ignoring the apology as if it wasn't important, or needed, Russo walked into the shadowed alley, his eyes adjusting to the change in light. Moving over to the remnants of some police tape he crouched down, groaning as the muscles in his legs protested, and passed the file to his young partner. Reaching into his jacket pocket he pulled out a small pen shaped torch and flicked it on, barely reacting as a rat scurried away from the sudden illumination.

"What are you looking for?" David asked, his attention focussed on the detective in front of him and his mind forgetting the smell. Looking over the large man shoulders he saw a small white square framed around a darker patch of ground, partially free of debris. "What is that?"

Joey said nothing, but beckoned David to join him. Crouching down alongside the older man, with much more ease and grace, David peered at the dark patch.

"I am looking for anything, Davey, anything at all," Joey said as he peered at his colleague intently, "and that, kid, is blood. Dried blood."

David flushed under the intent scrutiny of Joey, knowing that he should have realised what the dark material was. He was so fixated with the fact that he was actually working on a murder case that he had forgotten to actually work on the murder case. _Focus,_ he silently ordered himself, annoyed, _get your brain in gear._

"Sorry" he said, sincerely. "Stupid question, I should have known that."

"There are no such things as stupid questions," Joey laughed, "only stupid answers. Like I said, though, we are looking for something that they may have missed, something that could have been overlooked."

"Do you think that we will find anything?" David asked, intrigued.

"To be honest," Joey said with a sigh of resignation, "I doubt it. The razor was found nearly two weeks ago and the blood was recent but could have been up to six weeks old, and we don't know how long it had been lying there because even though this is a good area the refuse guys have been on strike for nearly two months. Hence the amount of garbage."

"Then why are we here?"

Joey stood up, David following him, and stared directly into the kid's earnest face.

"Simple, kid," he said, running a tired hand through his hair, "someone not much older than you has been missing for two years and is probably dead, nearly a pint of his blood found in this very alley. Someone knows something, kid, someone saw something. The answers are here."

A flicker of memory ran through David's head and he started to flick through the pages of the file as Joey continued speaking.

"Besides which," he admitted with a chuckle, "I can't stand being cooped up in the office when I could be out looking for a clue, a hint, anything at all that would link us to this guy."

"A wrestler!" David exclaimed, his face peering closely into the file to read it in the dim light of the alley.

"Yeah," Joey said, thinking the statement was a question, "he was a wrestler."

"No, I didn't mean that," David argued excitedly, "I think that I found a link. There is a wrestler lives in this building!"

With more grace than should have been possible Joey rounded on David and grabbed the file from his hands, shining his torch onto the papers as he searched through them.

"What?" he muttered, almost to himself, "who?" David peered over his shoulder and slammed his finger onto the circle of light, pointing directly at one name.

"Ember."

/ / /

"Ember?"

A slightly electronic tone carried through on the unseen speaker as the hands free phone on the table amplified his voice. In front of it, on the floor, Ember sat in full splits, a set of dumbbells discarded by his side.

"Yeah John," he said, his voice calm and neutral, "I am still here." Dressed in a tight black workout suit that covered him from his neck to his toes, his hands covered by gloves of the same material, only his hair and face contrasted starkly. White, almost silver, waves of hair were tightly bound back into a plait that fell to the ground beside him while no features were visible on the tight material that covered his face.

"Thought that I lost you there." John Sinclair didn't sound perturbed at all, he had far too much control over his emotions for that, but still Ember knew that he was slightly annoyed. "You are taking this seriously aren't you?"

"Of course I am John," Ember said simply, his tone sounding more bored than concerned, "you are my lawyer after all and if you think that it is worth _bothering_ me with then it must be serious."

"Bothering you?" Sinclair repeated, catching the emphasis that Ember had placed on the word, "they are threatening to sue you Ember. They say that they have you contracted exclusively to them and that you have defaulted on that contract."

"I know what they say, John," Ember sighed, bringing his legs up in front of him and hugging his knees, all focus on training lost, "they have been saying it to me for weeks now. You are my lawyer, though, so what is the truth?" A couple of months previously Ember had walked away from the federation that employed him, the WWA, and even though whilst he was there the powers that be had done their best to get rid of him know that he had walked away themselves they seemed intent on doing all they could to bring him back; or, at least, to stop him going elsewhere.

"Well," John said, obviously thinking about it, "the 'truth' is that you are still under contract with them."

"I know that John, which is why," Ember pointed out, staring at the phone as if he could see through it, "I am 'flying the flag' in the GTT for that sinking ship! No one else there is able to compete at this level so I am doing my duty for them and working out my contract this way! What more do they want?"

It was a question that he had asked himself ever since the WWA had started phoning him again. When he had first started there, about two years ago, it had been an up-hill battle to make any headway. Constantly refereed to as an outsider he had to work twice as hard as anyone else just to get the same breaks. Over time, though, he had slowly climbed the ladder of success finally culminating in becoming their World champion. Spreading his wings, Ember had started competing on a global stage, instead of the WWA local one, within the PTC and he found that he enjoyed the taste of success he found there.

That was when the WWA, even though he had given his notice and made it clear that after he had worked out the remainder of his contract for them he was gone, started incessantly knocking on the door.

/ / /

Knocking on the door Joey Russo indicated that David Johnson should step back slightly. Reaching behind him he loosened the catch on his police revolved but didn't take it out of his holster. Too many years on the force had made him believe in being prepared. Some people would have called it paranoia, but then again most of those people were dead now, shot before they could get their own gun out.

"Shouldn't we get a warrant for this?" David asked, his expression worried. "Or call for backup at least?"

"We don't need it," Joey relied, reassuringly, "either one. We are just going to ask a couple of questions, is all."

The door opened in front of them and David stepped back, a gasp escaping his mouth before he could stop it and he dropped the file from his hands, paper sliding across the floor to land at the feet of the dark clothed figure, who didn't seem to notice them. Russo, however, didn't flinch; people in opaque and featureless facemasks seemingly second nature to him. Holing up his wallet he flashed his ID.

"Mr. Ember?" he asked, cordially.

"Just Ember, officer," Ember replied, "what can I do for you … selling police memorial fund tickets?"

"A little more serious than that, I am afraid," Joey said, his tone still as calm as if he was talking about the weather, "I wanted to ask you some questions about a homicide actually."

David Johnson bent down and scrabbled to pick up all the papers that had fallen but before he could Ember leant down and slowly picked up the last one, a photograph of a young man, long auburn hair framing a smiling face as dazzling green eyes sparkled. Joey Russo pointed to it, indicating the figure in the photo.

"The murder of Jay Phoenix."

/ / /

To be continued.


	4. A picture paints a thousand words

The ballad of two  
Interlude  
A picture paints a thousand words

/ / /

The small room was shrouded in shadows, the furthest corners nearly completely black as the single lamp on the writing desk failed to send its tendrils of illumination into their depths, and the darkness outside the floor length sliding doors that led to the balcony beyond complete on the moonless night. The gossamer like curtains hung motionless, diffusing what little light came in from outside, standing as silent witness to the room's sole occupant.

Sitting at the table, with his back to the curtained night, was a pale reflection of what lay outside. Clothed from the neck down in form-fitting black, and with hair that was as pale as the unseen moon, Ember sat so still that he could have been part of the room itself. Only the slight movement, barely perceptible, of his shoulders as he breathed gently in and out differentiated him from just another piece of furniture in the sparsely decorated room. With deliberate slowness Ember leant backwards, ever so slightly, and two things became apparent. The first was, as his long hair moved around his shoulders, that something was hanging on the corner of the chair; bone-white material with a pearlesque sheen, draped haphazardly. His mask. The second was that, even though his face was unseen, from the angle of his head he was staring up at the only other object in the room. A rectangular frame on the wall draped and completely covered in diaphanous black silk.

A noise echoed softly, in the same way that a single footstep can sound like thunder in an empty house when all alone, in the room harsh and out of place and as Ember's shoulders shook more visibly it suddenly became obvious what the sound was. Laughter.

Leaning forwards over the desk, his hair falling forward to curtain his face in its white depths, Ember picked up a silver fountain pen. In letters that were small and concise, every stroke deliberate and controlled, he began to write in a leather bound book in front of him, continuing an already started sentence.

_… couldn't believe that fat idiot of a cop!_

He thought that he had me dead to rights but Sinclair showed him; turning up at the station even before we got there definitely surprised the cop, and his little rookie of a partner too.

What was it that he said? Oh yeah, I remember now, "Just a couple of questions, Ember" with that butter wouldn't melt tone of voice and wide-eyed stare that was obviously meant to put me at ease and convince me that he was my 'friend' when all it really did was make him look even more moronic that nature had intended. It was all I could do to restrain the urge to bite his eyes out there and then, but then I suppose even Sinclair would have had trouble getting me off.

… not that he wouldn't have gotten me off of course, it would just have been harder.

Fat cop … what was his name again? Russo. Yeah Russo. Well he didn't even get me past the front door before Sinclair 'explained' to him that I wouldn't be 'helping with the enquiries' after all. Bit of a shame, really, as I was looking forwards to hearing what they had found out about you, brother dear.

I have to admit that I was a bit surprised when he said your name like that. Part of me was expecting it, always expecting it, but after two years it was a bit of a shock. If someone had knocked my door the first week, or even the first month after … well let's just say after you 'went away' shall we? … and told me that they were looking for you then I wouldn't have been so surprised. I mean I had planned for it, I knew what I was going to say. Not even Harrison Ford would have prepared his lines as well as I had.

… 'oh no officer, I have no idea where my brother is' I would have said, just the right amount of sincerity mixed with a dash of concern, 'I haven't seen him for a while … we weren't close you know.'

When the weeks turned into months, though, and the months into years – two years – I have to admit that I became complacent. I had almost forgotten that you were gone. Not quite as good as forgetting that you never existed but, after all, it is a start.

As it is though, I didn't find out anymore than Russo and his little bitch of a partner were investigating your murder. I am not quite sure what to think about that. I mean I would love to be able to finally bury you, just so that I could dance of your grave of course, but even Sinclair said that they were 'leaping to conclusions'.

No body, no witnesses, no evidence at all

… apart from the blood of course. Where the fuck did they find blood from? I think that the rookie slipped up and said too much because the fat cop didn't look happy when he mentioned the blood sample. Where _**did**__ it come from? __**WHERE**__**WHERE**__**WHERE**__**WHERE**__?????_

I know that I didn't leave any …

… no, not that easy my friends.

End of the day it doesn't matter. Even if Sinclair hadn't been there I wouldn't have said anything that would … could … incriminate me. How could I? I mean it is not like I know anything, is it? It is not like I killed you is it?

All those idiots thought that they had on me was the fact that they found some blood nearby my apartment and that I am a wrestler just like you were … are, I mean, because we can't 'assume' that you are dead, now can we?

… we can just hope and fucking pray that you are. Don't know why I am being so careful, no-one will ever find this journal, and even if they did no-one will ever be able to read it. At least that is one thing that grandfather taught us. Not even the Windtalkers could decipher this one!  
But still, where DID they find blood from? How could it still be fresh?! I know that it can't be from you. I made sure to take care of you properly. There was NO trace left, and even if there was how could they have fresh blood now?

They can't that is all. They are just bluffing and hoping that someone will slip up.

Just a coincidence, the rookie said trying to be nice cop I suppose, that another wrestler lived in the building.

… what would they think if they knew that we were related, that we were brothers? What would they think if they knew just how much I hated you with every part of me?!

They would smile and lock me up, just like that fat fuck hinted. 'Obstruction of justice' he growled at Sinclair, who just smiled his little smile as he handed over his business card. 'My client has some very important bookings to attend, detective' he had said, his voice like ice-water, 'so unless you have something more concrete we will be leaving now'.

I could have pissed myself laughing at that fat idiot's face, and the look of shock … and almost loss of faith … on the rookie's face as he watched his fat hero fail.

'Important bookings' my arse. Just another night, just another match and just another idiot rookie to attend to. I don't even know what this XP is meant to be, brother dearest, but you know what? I don't care either.

Just a couple of more nights, a couple of more matches, and I will have done it. I will have beaten you.

I will step out of your shadow and eclipse you, I will do what you could never do. Then you really _**will**__ be buried, and what will you say then?_

Ember dropped the pen on the journal in front of him, leaning back and looking up at the draped frame on the wall above him. Reaching up, almost tenderly, he pulled at the corner of the material and allowed it to float to the desk below. A picture, framed in deep ebony wood, was revealed with a glimpse of a handsome and tanned man, long auburn hair cascading in waves to almost his waist, holding up a title belt in one hand as he smiled out of the photo.

"You won't say anything, will you, brother dear?" he said, his voice choked with evident fury, "you can't … you are dead!"

/ / /

To be continued.


	5. Dreams and Revelations

The ballad of two  
Part four  
Dreams and revelations

/ / /

Walking into the office of his still new partner, Joseph Russo, David Johnson nodded his greeting to the workman who was busy replacing a sheet of glass in the door. He couldn't help smiling – grinning in truth – as he caught sight of Joey with his feet up on one of the two desks in the room, though he was quick to hide it as Joe looked up at him.

"You're late," Joe growled, taking a sip of steaming coffee from a large stainless steel mug that looked tiny and almost delicate in his ham-like fists. Even seated and with is feet up he still looked like a volcano that was ready to erupt. Bull-necked, and with a body that was once mostly muscle but now quickly degenerating into fat, Russo was an imposing figure at the best of times; this wasn't the best.

"… and you are **still** in a bad mood," David stated simply as he sat down on the opposite side of the desk. Even after only working with the large man for just shy of four weeks he knew that Joe's bark, so to speak, was worse than his bite. Plus he also knew that the man's anger wasn't aimed his way. _Thank God for that_ he thought to himself, and then continued, out loud, "it has been a week, aren't you over it?"

As soon as the words left David's mouth he knew that he had made a mistake. Unfortunately, while hindsight is twenty-twenty that didn't really help.

"Over it" Joe repeated, his brows furrowing close together and giving him an instant uni-brow, "_**over it**_?!". Slamming his mug down on the desk, and ignoring the coffee that splashed onto its surface, he swept his feet off the table and stood up to his full six foot four inches before leaning over, hands flat below him, and put his nose mere inches away from David's own. Eyes wide and staring David, wisely, said nothing and tried to ignore the smell of stale nicotine and sour coffee that wafted over him.

"Tell me kid," Joe rumbled, the bass in his voice almost rattling David's teeth, "just what exactly should I be 'over'?"

"Well …" David started, and then swallowed whatever it was he was going to say as he noticed the vein in Joe's head begin to pulse and realised that the question was probably rhetorical. Even if it wasn't he decided that discretion – and in this case total silence – was the better part of valour.

"Should I be over the fact that some kid is dead and no-one apart from me seems to give a damn," Joe blustered through clenched teeth, "or over the fact that the main suspect in the case walked out of this very building without even being questioned and got away with murder. Literally!" Slamming both hands down on the desk, the solid wood shuddering and causing a worrying crack to ring out somewhere deep within it, Joe stood up straight again, looking ready to continue with his rant until a calm voice interjected from the doorway.

"Why don't you sit down and relax, Joe," Mike Silver, Captain of the police department and Joe's boss and best friend both, stated simply as he walked into the room. Staring down the much larger man from across the room, Mike couldn't help but silently acknowledge the passion in his friend's voice. It was both his best quality and his worst. It made Joe Russo one of the best cops that Mike had ever known simply due to the fact that he never quit … but it also had led to complaints and even disciplinary action over the years because it also meant that he never knew when to back down. A small distinction, admittedly, but one that had led to him still being detective while Mike was captain. " … before you break the desk like you did the door."

The steam went out of Joe, visibly, and he almost sank back into the chair with a sheepish look on his face. He looked up at the door, now fully repaired, and couldn't help but remember how he had almost taken it off its hinges only a few days before.

When David and himself and realised that a wrestler was living in the same apartment block where a blood soaked towel and razor had been found – blood that had been identified as belonging to a wrestler, Jay Phoenix, who hadn't been seen in nearly two years, they knew that it was too much of a coincidence to actually **be** a coincidence. Deciding to talk to the wrestler, Ember, they had asked him to come down to the station with them just to answer some simple questions. What they hadn't banked on, however, was the fact that Ember had been on the phone to his lawyer – one of the industries top lawyers – at the same time. When they had arrived at the station they had found Jackson Sinclair the Third waiting for them. They didn't even get Ember passed the front door before Sinclair had informed them that if they wanted to talk to his client that they could do so through him … and only with the aid of a warrant. His parting comment – more of a jibe as Joe realised – for the two officers to give his best to 'his friend' the Commissioner gave a very clear warning of just whom they were dealing with.

After trying – repeatedly – to get a warrant to question Ember and search his apartment, as well as trying to find out anything in Ember's background that would help link him to the case … both without success … Joe had returned to his office and slammed the door so hard that one of the hinges had sheared of completely while the plate glass window had shattered into a thousand pieces.

"I can't relax, Mikey," Joe sighed as he resorted to his friend's nickname subconsciously, "I just know that there is something not right about that Ember, I can feel it in my gut!"

"… and who are we to argue with such a prodigious gut?" Mike asked, grinning. For a second David held his breath, waiting for Vesuvius to finally erupt and praying that it would all end quickly, just like it did for Pompeii. The eruption, when it came, was not at all what he expected however and it took him a couple of seconds to realise that Joey was laughing. Loudly and unselfconsciously.

"Oh that is right," he snorted between bray like laughs, "make fun of the 'fatman' – if you are not careful I will have to Scythe you!" Mike joined in with the laughter, and rather than be left out so did David. After a few seconds, while the other two men were still chortling to themselves, he decided that while ignorance was meant to be bliss he really needed to know what the joke was.

"Erm, guys," he said with a bit of embarrassment as he looked from one to the other, "I don't get it."

"Pretty simple kid," Joe said, wiping the tears from his eyes, his mood finally lifted, "combine the fact that I cannot find too much information about our mysterious Ember with the fact that he has one of the best lawyers in the Country fending off every query I put forward about him and then add that to the fact that … 'coincidently' of course … the blood we found is also of a wrestler, and you get my gut telling me that Ember is responsible for the death of this Phoenix guy."

"… all we have to do now," Mike interjected, suddenly serious, "is prove it."

"No," David said sheepishly, "I get that, but …" He trailed off and cast his gaze around the room, trying not to look at either man as he felt the heat rise in his dark brown cheeks.

"What then?" Mike said, his eyebrows raised quizzically as Joe shrugged.

"'Scythe'?" He asked, repeating what Joe had threatened Mike with earlier. "What on Earth does _that_ mean?"

Mike and Joe stared at the younger man, then at each other, and then they burst out laughing again. David just sat in bemusement, waiting for them to calm down, and feeling that he was somehow the butt of a joke that he wasn't part of. When Joe finally managed to grab a breath he leant forwards on the table and nodded at Mike who closed the door – gently – before nodding back.

"OK kid, listen carefully," he growled in mock seriousness. Well David assumed … hoped even … that it was mock. "When I was in the police academy with silver locks over there, and for a couple of years after it, I helped fund myself with a little moonlighting on the side." He gave an exaggerated wink as he said this, and Mike snorted with laughter yet again.

"You may have noticed," Joe continued, "that I am on the larger side …"

"… people on the NASA shuttle can notice that from space, Joey!" Mike jibed, grinning wickedly as Joey mimed taking a shot to the heart.

"As I was saying," Joe stated archly, "before I was rudely interrupted, I am a large guy so for a few years I worked for a local wrestling federation, just part-time of course, and mostly opening matches. Never hit it big or got on any televised show, but it paid the bills at least."

"You … you were a wrestler?" David asked, incredulous.

"Yeah kid, I was," Joe said, a hint of reproach and pride in his voice, "nothing wrong with that you know, it was an honest living at least."

"If you call dressing up in tights and calling yourself 'The Reaper' an honest living of course," Mike pointed out with a laugh.

"The Reaper?" David asked, looking between the two men to see if they were having a laugh at his expense but realising that … as bizarre as it seemed … they were telling the truth.

"Yeah," Joe acknowledged, "with a finishing move called the Scythe which I always threaten to 'show' … if you know that I mean … to Mikey here if he doesn't treat me better."

"Weren't you afraid of your friends, or even your bosses, finding out though Joe?" David asked sincerely. While he had watched quite a bit of wrestling himself, mostly due to the fact that his younger brother was still a massive fan of it, he himself couldn't help but be a little embarrassed by the whole pantomime of the 'sport'.

"Nah, not at all," Joey laughed, with a knowing wink, "they never knew it was me, the Reaper could have been anyone because I always wore a mas …" His voice trailed of as his eyes widened in a mixture of shock and sudden revelation. Jumping to his feet he grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair, knocking his mug over and spilling the coffee across the desk where it drenched David's trousers, and ran to the door, yanking it open as he ran out of the office, barely pausing to call back over his shoulder to the two stunned men.

"I always wore a fucking mask!"

/ / /

The silver pen rolled across the journal pages, a trail of black ink marking its passage, until it reached the edge whereupon it fell to the carpeted floor below. The sound, such as it was, wasn't enough to stir the figure who sat slumped at the desk, arm outstretched across it, and head flat upon it with a wave of pale blonde hair as a blanket. Just visible beneath the hair, wisps of which blew gently around with each soft breath, was a picture frame.

The old-fashioned brass lamp, that was the only illumination in the room, flickered as the wind outside the patio doors picked up from a gentle breeze to a serious gust. A peal of thunder, somewhere off in the distance, rang out as the lamp flickered again. With a last, feeble, flicker the lamp finally died out completely leaving the room in almost complete darkness until a flash of lightning brought the room into stark relief, strobe-like in its intensity

A moan, muted through clenched teeth, came from beneath the mass of hair as another peal of thunder rang out, this time louder and for longer. As a second flash of lightning flooded the room much sooner after the thunder, signifying the encroaching storm coming closer, Ember's hand – subconsciously – reached out to grip the edge of the picture frame. Tightly.

"… no …" Ember whispered, his tone slack through sleep, "I don't understand …"

_"I don't understand …" Ember said, his confusion evident, as the rabbit open the door and gestured him through, "I can't be late … I didn't know that I was expected!"_

The white door opened without a sound and without replying to Ember's statement, without even seeming to acknowledge it, the rabbit bounded forwards into the large open hallway beyond it. Ember shook his head, trying to shake the disorientation that he felt, and stepped forwards into the doorway himself.

"Can I take your coat, sir?"

Thinking about it for a second, Ember looked down at his body and realised that he was wearing his black wrestling attire. Smiling back at the red-suited bellboy he shook his head.

"I don't have a coat."

"Oh, well you can borrow mine" Taking his red jacket off the young bellboy held it out towards Ember and gestured that he should put it on. Reaching out one arm, Ember placed it into the sleeve and then turned around so that he could get his other arm into the jacket too. The wall behind him was clean and unbroken and, for a second, the lack of a door perturbed him but the bellboy's voice as he finished putting the jacket on him made him forget about it.

"There you go sir," the bellboy said with a smile as he checked Ember up and down with a knowing wink, "fits like a glove."

Patting at the material Ember had to agree that it was a good fit and smiled his thanks as he started to move into the room but the bellboy, with a quick hand on his shoulder, stopped him.

"Can I take your coat, sir?"

Reaching out the bellboy had the jacket unbuttoned again and off Ember before he could react. As the young man reached out and handed him a piece of paper Ember stared at it in confusion.

"It is your ticket, sir," the bellboy explained, "so that you can reclaim what is yours at the end of the night."

"… but it wasn't mine to begin with," Ember tried to explain, "it was yours."

"Well what is mine is yours, sir, what's mine is yours!" The bellboy enthused as he indicated the ticket. "Now don't lose that sir, take good care of it, it is the only way to get it back remember."

"… but there is no-one else here to get confused with," Ember stated as he held the blank ticket up, "and no number on this either."

"Really?" Enquired the bellboy as he raised an eyebrow quizzically. Before Ember could reply the sound of a multitude of voices, buzzing in conversation and laughter interrupted him. Looking around the room he saw a crowd of gaily dressed and masked people talking, dancing and socialising. Realising his mistake he turned back to apologise to the bellboy, but found only empty air.

"Don't lose that, you won't get another."

Spinning around Ember tried to find the speaker but found no-one near him.

"Don't lose what?" he asked, unsure.

"Your ticket, mate … and I am down here."

Following the voice, and looking down at the ground, Ember saw a small plastic duck looking back up at him with flat and expressionless eyes. Looking around to see if anyone else had heard the duck, and realising that everyone was too wrapped up themselves to notice, Ember knelt down to be closer to the duck.

"Did you say something?" he asked, staring at the yellow toy.

"Are you deaf or just stupid?"

Ember didn't see the duck's lips move, but then again he wasn't sure that ducks had lips so it was probably ok. He thought about the question for a few seconds and realised that as he had heard the question he couldn't be deaf.

"… stupid I guess, if I have to be one," he replied, "why?"

"Because who the frik else would be talking to you down here?!" Without raising an eyebrow – again ducks didn't have those either, Ember realised – and with no emotion evident on its little plastic face, the duck still managed to 'stare' at Ember fixedly. This was, Ember decided, rather easy to do when you had fixed eyes.

"Look mate," the English accent that seemed to be coming from the unmoving yellow duck stated softly, "don't mind me, I am not in an exceptional mood."

"No problems," Ember said, happy to take the apology at face value.

"So, what are you here as?"

"What?" Ember asked in apparent confusion.

"Geez, you weren't joking when you said 'stupid' were you?"

"No, but …"

"Do … you … want … me … to … speak … slower … for … you?" the voice that could be the plastic duck's voice asked very slowly.

"No," Ember stated decisively after thinking about it, "that is pretty annoying actually, why don't you just tell me what you meant?"

"You are here for the masquerade ball, aren't you?" the duck seemed to ask, "so I was just wondering what you were here as."

"Oh," Ember stated simply as he finally got an easy question, "that is simple. I am here as me."

"… but who issh that?"

The question took Ember by surprise and he turned around to see a pale-faced man standing behind him. Dressed in a fluffy white shirt and a long black frock coat the man smiled at Ember, two pronounced and gleaming canine teeth visible.

"One of the bashic queshtionsh of the univershe" the man said with a smile, "to ashk 'who am I?'" Taking Ember by the arm he pulled him towards a round table where four other men, all dressed exactly the same as him, were sitting staring at pieces of paper and reading from the same book.

"Getting an anshwer," the man continued, "ish even more remarkable … of for fucksh shake!!" Reaching into his mouth the man pulled at the canine teeth and with a slurp they came out in his hand. "That is better," he said, "they look good but they are damn annoying after a while, but we feel it adds more atmosphere to the game you understand."

"The game?" Ember asked, still staring that the men around the table as one of the picked up a set of dice and started to roll them across the table.

"Oh you know," the man said, shocked, "The Masquerade!"

As the dice rolled one of the men suddenly cheered while the others started to rail and shout at him. Books, dice and paper flew at him while he sat there, trying to look innocent but failing.

"What is going on?" Ember asked as the original man shook his head and tutted sadly.

"Ah," he said with a sigh, "that is just Tony, he always tries to get more XP than he deserves … cheats you know." A sly wink finished the sentence off.

"…XP?" Ember asked, something tickling the back of his mind.

"So, what are you here as?" the man asked, ignoring the question and the carnage behind him as the mock vampires descended into chaos.

"Himself of course"

The sad voice made Ember turn to look to see who had spoke and he recoiled slightly as he saw a youth with half a face sitting playing a video game in front of him. Long hair covered some of the damage but a gaping hole through one side of the youth's face was still partially visible.

"I wish that I had thought of coming as myself." The youth said with another sigh, and then cursed as the screen flickered and small figures ran all over it. Sitting down beside him, moving the armour and large sword to one side, Ember watched the small battles taking place on the screen as he spoke to the white haired man.

"Why didn't you?" Ember asked, fascinated by the game.

"I thought that coming as the finalist fantasy would be better," the youth said with another sigh, "but it didn't seem to work."

"Why not?"

"Nothing is ever final, you see" the youth said as the screen went black with two words emblazoned in white on it – GAME OVER. After only a few seconds the screen came back on and the figures resumed their mad dance on the screen and the youth just sighed as he controlled them. "With enough XP you can just start again as someone else."

"Coming as yourself though," he said with admiration, "that is something special. We all came as the creations but you came as the creator!"

"I did?" Ember asked, his head spinning.

"Yeah, that takes guts!" The youth said, finally putting the game down and staring at Ember with half a face. "Most of us only go through the motions and it doesn't matter that the outcome is already decided we keep on going no matter how bad the character is in the story. You though … you cut the strings. No more chapters, you cut right to the epilogue!"

Feeling nauseas Ember got to his feet and reached up to his face, feeling faint. Seeing the ticket still clutched there he slowly spun it around and saw the words there, the name that identified him, and tried to focus his eyes to read it …

"Is he with you?" the youth asked as he pointed behind Ember. Turning around Ember came face to face with a full-length mirror and he felt the terror rise up in his chest, his gorge rising along with the silent scream that seemed to be tearing at his stomach to get out. The mirror was empty; there was no-one … nothing … there.

Suddenly … barely … just a glimpse … there were two figures there, superimposed one upon the other. Skin as white as snow, hair as pale as ice, and eyes as colourless as cream fought with tanned bronze skin, hair like flame and eyes that shone like piercing jade. Both figures stared at each other and then a scream broke the silence as the bronzed figure reached out … lashed out … and the mirror exploded outwards in a million shards towards Ember's face.

Throwing up his hands to protect himself Ember felt the ticket slip through his fingers just as the scream ripped through his mouth …

… and woke up. Throwing himself backwards, he fell off the chair and landed in a crumpled heap on the floor, clutching at his face. Staring in shock at his hands, as he pulled them away, he focussed on the small shards of glass that were stuck to them, each one framed by its own scarlet drop of blood. Reaching out he absent-mindedly wiped his hands on a piece of material and then dropped it as he scuttled backwards until his back hit the wall, the curtains that had once draped sedately across the closed patio doors now streaming wildly around him – caressing him like a lover's hand – as the doors slammed back and forth in the night air.

The mask – **his** mask – now coated in his own blood lay staring back up at him; the outline of the features that were imprinted on its once perfectly blank surface, in stark black ink, almost seeming to be reproaching him. Without any conscious thought Ember crawled forwards on his hands and knees, unmindful of the trail of blood he left behind him, and picked it up as he scrambled back into the seat, holding the mask alongside the picture frame; shuddering as he realised that the glass that held back the photo was shattered into a myriad spider-web of fractures.

Shaking the glass out of the frame, watching as it fell like solid rain around him, he pulled the photographic paper out and stared – back and forth – at the scrawled caricature on the mask and the features of the man in the photo. As rough as the imagery on the mask was it was obvious, without any doubt, that it was the same person. The mask feel from his hands as he stared at the photo, taking in the title belt held in his hands and focusing in on the name that was stamped there, embossed in gold. Two words … one name … that meant so much to him once, but now were nothing but a memory – dead and buried by his own hands.

Jay Phoenix.

The sensation of moisture on his hands made him stare down at them once more and the black stain of fresh ink made him look at the mask again, assuming that he had rubbed the features of it. The face was still there, still staring at him with blame in its lifeless eyes. Picking it up he turned it over, his eyes widening in shock – and then terror – as he saw two more words written there that would grow to mean more to him than any others. An echo of remembered agony spread through his chest and his fingers absent-mindedly traced the outlines of the same two words that had been carved into his skin.

**I'm back.**

/ / /

To be continued


	6. Masks

The ballad of two  
Part five  
Masks

/ / /

_Three days ago_

The car pulled up to a stop at the kerbside and after a few seconds of idling the engine fell silent.

The sound of the city was muted, an almost subliminal buzz of noise that was more felt than heard, like a dull ache in a rotting tooth or a hangover that has almost faded; the sort of itch that you can't just scratch.

Mexico City, even … or especially … the old quarter, at midday, when the Sun overhead made being outside almost unbearable due to the stifling heat and humidity, was never crowded at the best of times; this wasn't the best of times.

Debris and garbage littered the empty street and most of the buildings were in a state of disrepair, if not completely shut. Bordered up windows gazed out like soulless eyes over streets they had once watched prosper. Like any older town, though, too many people had moved away and too much new business had moved in elsewhere, taking the trade and the people with it. 'Progress' they called it; leaving the past behind and moving on without even a backward glance.

Just like with any evolutionary jump, however, not everything marched along at the same pace; not everyone decided to follow Darwin's path.

A few buildings, while looking like only the dirt and dried in dust was holding the mortar in place, still were open for business. A grocery store had its wares on display on the sidewalk outside; boxes of mixed fruit and vegetables standing alongside a freezer with a faded Coca Cola sign barely visible on it.

Next door to this, with the car parked directly outside its door, stood an unmarked building. From the outside it showed nothing to distinguish it from any of the other buildings around it. Its façade was as decrepit and Sun beaten as the others, a layer of grime coated its single window, which stood empty of any product. Only a small card hanging in the door, its background yellowed and its lettering faded, shone out as a cry of victory against the entropy that had swallowed the rest of the street in its entirety; only one small word made a difference.

'Abierto'

The driver's side door of the vehicle opened, a small shriek of metal on metal sounding as the heat-swollen hinge protested, as a figure swathed in black exited. Despite the heat of the day – the air over the hood of the car visibly moving – the figure was dressed in an ankle length duster coat, Magnum boots just visible below the hem, and a wide brimmed hat on top of his head. A pale blonde plait collated all so his hair into one long, thick, strand that fell nearly to his waist.

Pausing for a second, breathing in the sticky heated air with distaste, the man looked around him, taking in the buildings and squalor, and under the shadow that the brim of his hat threw across his face all that could be seen was a scarf that was pulled up to his nose and two eyes staring out. Pale and colourless.

Squaring his shoulders he turned and reached out to the door, pushing it open and walking into the darkness within, his won dark form swallowed whole by its welcoming embrace.

"¿Hola senor, cómo puedo yo le ayudo?"

Peering in the dimly lit room, his eyes almost seeming to shine with an inner light – but probably just reflecting whatever it was that passed for illumination in the building – the figure tried to see the speaker and then threw up one hand over his face in autonomous reaction as … Genesis like … the room lit up.

"First of all you can warn me next time **before** you recall that you actually have electricity in the backwater Hell-hole," Ember growled as he blinked away the residual stars that danced in front of his eyes, "and secondly you can speak English. You seemed to manage ok on the phone!"

"Si, senor, I did," the small man said from behind a counter that split the room, cleanly, in two. "As I recall, however, your Spanish was excellent then as well." An almost tooth free smile beamed out through skin that was as creased as old leather as wisps of hair, almost nothing more than a memory now, haloed the man's head as if raised by static electricity. His eyes though, hazel-brown, were still bright and vibrant, belying his obvious age.

"Just because I am able to do something well," Ember said as he walked forwards to lean nonchantly on the table, bringing himself down to the older man's eye-level, "doesn't mean that I like doing it. Or even want to. Besides which, haven't you always heard that the customer is always right?"

"Of course senor," the old man laughed, his voice full of warmth, "however you are not yet a customer, are you?"

"That depends on if you have kept to your promise, old man." Ember's tone was soft; his voice barely above a whisper, but still the trace of inherent threat within it was impossible to miss. The old man didn't move, didn't overtly react, but the lines around his eyes tightened and he stared more intently at his erstwhile customer.

"I don't recall making any _promise_, senor," the man stated calmly as he continued to stare into the shadows that covered Ember's face.

"Is it ready?" Ember interrupted brusquely.

"You didn't give me much time you know," the man pointed out, still sounding calm, "normally I have weeks, if not months, to create these for my clients. They are all unique, you know, all hand-ma…"

"**IS** it ready?!"

As if realising that the only barrier between them both was two feet of Oak the old man did react this time, taking a small step backwards as Ember slammed his hand down, emphasising his words, on the wooden counter between them.

"Yes."

They say that the voice of God could calm the Storm, and that music could soothe the Beast. Whether or not either of those things is true didn't really matters as that single word, spoken softly but with evident pride, calmed Ember instantly.

"Let me see it …" Ember asked, his voice once again under his control, his body language calm. As if realising that something more was required, or at least would be appreciated, he almost returned to a childlike state as he held both hands out, longingly, and added an extra plea.

"Please."

Reaching under the counter, not taking his eyes of Ember, the old man pulled out a small wooden box, about the size of a cigar-box but thinner, and placed it gently down in front of him. Ember reached out, almost unconsciously, but stopped as the old man placed one hand on the top of the box.

"I never asked, senor Ember," the man stated, "how you heard of me? I am practically retired now you know" While the man's tone was neutral it was obvious that he wanted his questions answered before he handed the box over to Ember who seemed to realise this. Taking his eyes away from the box, dragging them away and forcing himself to look back up at the man, he allowed his reaching hand to relax and fall back by his side.

"You are the best, senor," Ember stated simply, giving a nod of respect to the man in front of him as his eyes flickered to the box under his hand.

"That is true," the man responded without a trace of false pride, "but that still doesn't tell me how you knew about me … nor does it explain the coincidence of the request."

Facing each other, standing in silence that seemed to last forever but in reality was no longer than a blink of the eye, neither man moved for a second. The mental stalemate was broken when, uncharacteristically, Ember backed down.

"My grandfather told me about you," he said with a small shrug of his shoulders. "Well actually he told my brother about you, I just happened to hear him. He said that you still did things the old-way, that you still made some special …"

"Yes?" the man prompted as Ember's voice trailed off.

"… something magical." Ember finished, the hopeful tone in his voice audible as he sounded like nothing more than a child asking if Santa Clause was real and dreading the answer.

"Ah," was the only reply that he got, "your grandfather sounds like a wise man."

"He was an evil piece of crap who never thought that I was good enough," Ember spat out, his anger taking control of him before he could stop his words, "in fact he wished that I had never been created."

"Created?" the man repeated his curiosity piqued.

"Created, born, brought to life," Ember said tersely, "surely even someone as old as you recalls what it means to bring a new life into the World?!"

"Indeed I do, youngling" the man whispered under his breath, too low for Ember to actually hear, "probably better than you think."

"Sorry?" Ember asked, leaning forwards to try to pick up the man's words.

"I said 'what do you think?'" Opening the box the old man slowly turned it around so that Ember could look inside it and see its contents. Reaching slowly out, almost seeming to forget that the man was even there, Ember falteringly touched the material that rested inside the box; grasping it, tenderly like a lover's touch, he pulled it out and stared at it in wonder. His eyes traced the lines of colour that interlinked with each other … the reds following the yellows as they chased the oranges … and did a double take as the old man touched his shoulder.

"I said," the old man repeated, "is it what you wanted?"

Taking his hat off and dropping it on the counter Ember slowly pulled the scarf down from his face and gently, again tenderly, raised the object from the box up to his head. Pulling it down over his eyes, sighing as he felt it cover him from the forehead to just under his nose like a second skin, and shivering as he felt the warmth of connection, Ember grinned as he fastened the mask tightly to him.

"What I wanted?" Ember repeated as he turned to look at the man squarely in the face, his whole body language changed; his shoulders squared and his head was held high. "Oh no, my friend, this is so much more than what I wanted … this is perfect!"

Reaching into his pocket Ember pulled out a roll of banknotes and held them out to the old man who took them in his own hand but didn't release Ember from his grip. Holding tightly to his hand the old man pulled him closer and Ember, though bigger and stronger, found that he couldn't stop himself. With their noses almost touching the old man stared deep into Ember's eyes.

"The design that you asked for, this mask," the man whispered, knowing that Ember would hear him, "how did you know about it?"

"… what?" Ember asked, tremulously.

"I told you that each mask I do is unique, each one crafter just for its owner," the old man stated, "but you asked for a design that is identical to one that I did many years ago for someone else, someone that I worked with many times over the years." Reaching up the old man grabbed Ember by the back of the head and held him still as he gazed deeper into his eyes.

"How did you know … exactly … the design of the Inferno mask?" asked the man intently, "Right down to the last detail you asked for something that only two men knew about."

"I … I …" Ember croaked, his stare held like a captured animal in the intense gaze of the old man.

"Just me and the man that I made the original mask for when he first decided to hide his identity," the man continued, staring into Ember's eyes as if looking for something. "Just me and Jay Phoenix!"

"How did **YOU** know?!"

At the shouted question, and without any conscious volition, Ember dropped to his knees and the old man almost bent him backwards as he forced their faces as close together as they would go. His eyes widened, in shock and disbelief, and he let Ember go. As if a puppet with his strings cut Ember collapsed in on himself, breathing heavily as he hugged his arms around his chest.

"What did you do?" he asked through gasping breaths.

"I had to be sure," the old man said quietly as he gazed down at Ember, confusion evident on his face, "I thought that you were him you see and I didn't know why you would be playing a silly game with me like that."

"Him?" Ember asked, still dazed.

"Phoenix, of course," the old man said as he indicated the mask on Ember's face. "… but I knew him well, I made many masks for him over the years, and I looked into his eyes … into his soul … many times. You are not him."

"I could have told you that," Ember said, some of his cocky sarcasm coming back to the surface as he shakily got off his knees and leant against the counter, trying to catch his breath. "We may be alike in many ways, him and me, but we are not the same. He wore the mask to hide himself from view, to be someone other than he actually was. I don't do that, I don't _hide_ myself from anyone. The mask is me and I am the mask."

"… but the design," the old man queried, "how did you know about it?"

Reaching out Ember closed the box slowly, putting it into his pocket as he reached down and picked up the roll of US dollars from the floor and placed them in the boxes place on the counter.

"How I knew about it?" Ember repeated with a small smile, "that is simple. Brothers don't keep secrets from each other do they?"

Looking around the room Ember stared back at the older man and then gave him a knowing wink.

"Not even from the grave."

/ / /

To be continued


	7. Revelations

The ballad of two  
Part six  
Revelations

/ / /

_Two days ago_

"Is this really necessary?"

With a sigh Rick James rubbed a hand wearily across his eyes for the second time in the last hour. The combination of jetlag from the flight into the City earlier in the day and the bright lights of the interview room made them feel like they were full of grit; their redness, he hoped that the two men opposite him would assume, caused by this. His father, after all, may not have taught him much but one lesson that had been beaten into him, literally, was that _real_ men didn't cry.

The tears had fallen nonetheless, however, moments after he had hung up on the detective twelve hours ago.

He still couldn't believe that he had managed to keep it together during the phone-call, especially when he had heard the words that he had been dreading for nearly two years. There had been nights that he had woken up, drenched in sweat, with them still echoing in his dreams; that is on the nights that he actually managed to sleep without popping a couple of pills of course. The truth was that he hadn't needed to hear that they had found Jay's blood on a weapon of some sort to feel the coldness in the pit of his stomach; when the gruff voice on the other end of the phone, trying so hard to be compassionate and failing so miserably, had mentioned the department he worked for. That one word was enough.

Homicide.

Still, though, he managed to hold it together long enough to scribble down the name and phone number of the detective and agree to fly in to talk to the man face-to-face. There were some things, the detective had said, that needed clarified and if Rick was able to help … of course he was, Rick had been quick to state … then it could make all the difference.

All the difference?

What difference could he make now anyway? They hadn't actually come out and said it yet but, even unspoken, the message had sunk in. It had been whispering to him when he sat, arms wrapped around his knees, sobbing in his apartment moments after speaking to the detective; it had been murmuring to him while he made his way, zombie-like, to the airport and boarded his last minute red-eye flight half-way across the Country; it had been taunting him when his cab pulled up outside the austere Police Department building, its grey brick walls looking like nothing more than tombstones; and it had been screaming at him ever since he sat down across the table from Detectives Russo and Johnson in the small interview room, staring into his own haunted eyes that gazed back at him, red-rimmed, in the mirror that filled one wall.

Jay Phoenix was dead.

Until this very moment, even in his darkest times … and there had been many of those … he had always clung to the hope, faint as it sometimes was, that he was still out there somewhere. Hurt somewhere, perhaps in a coma, hospitalised while doctors and machines kept him breathing but were unable to 'fix' him; even that would be preferable to the alternative. He knew how absurd it was to wish that his best friend was injured and unconscious, unknown and forgotten about, but he prayed every night that that was the truth.

For if it wasn't … if he got _**the**_ call from the police … then hope would finally be gone, escaped from Pandora's box, and his worst nightmare of the last two years would become all too real.

Jay Phoenix would be dead.

His best friend would be dead.

His lo …

"Yes, Mr James, this _really_ is necessary." There was a terse edge to Joey Russo's voice, as he interrupted Rick James's obvious daydream. He tried to remember that he wasn't dealing with one of the typical people that sat opposite him in an interview room but this case was affecting him more then he cared to let on, and his temper – never the most calm and collected to being with – was barely held in check.

Just shy of one month ago his friend and boss, Captain Michael Silver, had passed him a file and told him that it was now his case. The fact that it was both a cold case, one that had been opened two years previously without any resolution, so while not actually active also not actually closed – forgotten but not gone – as well as a missing person's case had initially annoyed the veteran homicide detective immensely; a suspected murder weapon and a copious amount of blood, however, had not only brought the case back to attention but moved it right in the realm of homicide. Added to that was the fact that Silver had also lumbered him with a fresh faced rookie, fresh out of uniform, and for the first time in may years Russo had been forced to work with a partner.

The partner, surprisingly so to Russo, had worked out very well indeed. David Johnson may have been relatively new to the detective's badge but he had an amazingly good record in uniform and a bright and enquiring mind to boot. He had brought a different perspective to aspects of the case that Russo himself hadn't even considered.

Perspective that had lead them to knock on the door of a man known only as Ember. Russo himself had some limited experience in the wrestling ring, a way of putting himself through the academy, and had even worn a mask when competing. Unlike Ember, however, he took it off at the end of the night. At the end of the battle. Ember, as far as Russo's research led him to believe, never took the mask off. Never.

Before they could question Ember, however, his solicitor – one of the industries top earners, according to Captain Silver – had informed them that the blood soaked weapon being found in the vicinity of Ember's apartment block, and the fact that both the 'alleged' victim and his client were wrestlers, was not enough to bring him in for questioning.

To Russo's extreme ire the judges seemed to agree as his numerous requests for warrants to question Ember, or search his property, had been denied.

All that he and Johnson had been able to do was follow wild goose chases and find dead ends. As far as they could tell the reason for the case, Jay Phoenix, had simply fallen of the face of the Earth two years previously. Scheduled to take part in a wrestling tournament, against one of his best friends so the notes said, he had never shown up and had not been seen since.

The only trace of him that had ever been found was the blood soaked towel that had concealed a straightedge razor. Blood that was, so the forensics team confirmed, only a matter of days old.

So how, Russo asked himself on many occasions over the last few weeks, did you get fresh blood from someone who hadn't been seen in two years?

He thought that he had finally got the answer, that he had had a revelation, an epiphany so to speak, when Johnson, Silver and himself had been light-heartedly talking about his 'career' as a wrestler. Johnson had asked how no one had ever realised that he was moonlighting and Russo had pointed out that he had always worn a mask.

It was in that moment that he realised that he may have had the answer under his nose all the time. He hadn't been able to get a warrant to question Ember because there was not enough to link him to the crime … there was nothing, truth be told, at all to link him and Phoenix together. But what, Russo had asked himself as he ran out of his office and left his partner and captain bemused behind him, he just couldn't **see** the link?

What if the only thing that separated him from all the answers was nothing more than a few millimetres of material?

What if, behind the mask, Ember was …

"Ok," Rick James said as he took a deep breath in to steady himself, breaking Russo's reverie, "where would you like me to start this time?" He didn't mean for the rancour to coat his words but he also didn't bother trying to stop it either; he had already been through all of this twice today and while he would do anything to help find Jay – alive or dead – he didn't see how any of this was useful.

With a small smile Russo folded his arms across his chest, nodding to his partner David Johnson who opened his notepad to a blank page, before looking directly into the tired, sad, eyes of Rick James.

"At the start, Mr James, at the very start."

/ / /

People are used to single parents these days. In fact it almost seems the norm for mothers, and sometimes-even fathers, to have sole custody of a child; twenty years ago, in the South-western State of Arizona, it was still almost unheard of.

Now combine the fact of a woman bringing up her son alone with the fact that she also had a profession – no apron strings on her – with the fact that she decided to dedicate her life to helping people classed as a minority. Not quite lepers, of course, but in many people's eyes they weren't far removed.

So we have a single mother, with her young son in tow, who refuses to mention her husband; we have a woman who – despite her 'upbringing' - decides to become a doctor instead of a homemaker; we have a woman who lives amongst the 'Godless'. I just realised that I almost forgot to mention the icing on the cake, didn't I? On top of all her other 'faults' my mother had turned her back on her family and their faith. She had been brought up a Mormon, you see, and for the first five or six years of my life I suppose that I had been too.

That all changed though on **that** day. The last time that we were a 'functional' family as I suppose it would be called; Father, Mother and Son. Almost a Biblical inclination there but I am pretty sure that there is nothing in the Holy Book about the father raping and beating the mother repeatedly is there?

… or nearly killing the son?

'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us'. Isn't that how it goes? It has been a long time but I am pretty sure that I got the basic theme right, if not word for word. My father, you see, rammed words like that, down my throat day and night.

… isn't it weird that I can remember how his voice sounded, I can remember what he said, but I can't remember his face? I have tried, you know, though Heaven help me if I can explain why, but all I get is a halo of flame red hair and the sound of his voice. I never see his face; not even in my dreams … nightmares I suppose.

Perhaps I should be thankful for that.

Even though I was barely more than a baby I still remember my mother screaming in the next room, night after night after night. There wasn't enough make-up in the World to cover the bruises, the cuts, just as there wasn't enough 'forgiveness' in the World for me to ever forgive my father for what he did to her. To us. Nor the so-called 'family'. We lived in a small community, you see. Both sets of grandparents lived near enough to spit on … not that I would if they were on fire … but never once did they step in to help; never once did they stop him. So night after night he gave out his lectures from the pulpit of a never-ending bottle of whiskey … lectures of vitriolic words punctuated with calloused fists. Each and every day _they_ turned a blind eye. Each and every night my mother turned another cheek; she had no choice you see, once one bone has been fractured you almost have to give a less painful target.

One night it all changed though. I remember hearing my mother screaming but that was nothing new. I had my head under the sheet, my bear held tightly – oh so tightly – and was praying that it would end. I still believed, back then, in the fallacy that someone was watching over me you see. When it all went quiet I even said thank you, silently, to the Lord above me. Fucking stupid kid.

When the sheet was pulled off me I think that I screamed, but I am not sure, but I do know that when I saw him standing over me – his eyes crazed and blood streaking his naked body – I did wet myself. I can still smell the ammonia reek and feel the warmth of my own piss as it ran down my leg … but I can't remember his face.

Like I said, weird.

I know that he grabbed me, in fact if you look at the x-rays you can still see the faint scar where he broke my ankle, but I don't know what else he did. I don't want to know to be honest. All I remember is screaming out for God to save me, for anyone to save me. For my Mother to save me. That was the last time that I prayed, the last time that I believed; it was answered, though.

I didn't know what I was seeing at the time, but I figured it out a few years later. We never talked about it, my mother and I, but we didn't need to. She was standing over me, one eye completely closed and her nightdress clinging to her body – around her thighs and stomach. I remember thinking to myself that she had wet herself too, I remember thinking that Daddy must have scared her like he did me. It was only later on that I realised that it was the wrong colour; that it was her own blood that dripped down her legs.

… it was much later on that I realised just what _he_ had done to her to make her bleed like that. To bleed … there.

She pulled me into her arms and staggered out into the night. She didn't pack anything; she didn't bring anything that I remember – not even Mr Teddy, and I still miss him sometimes – just ran into the night and got into the car. She tried to shield my face, she didn't want me to see I suppose, but I think that I saw him lying there, in my room. He was face down beside the bed and he looked smaller I think, he looked different. I can't be sure, of course, but it may have been a knife sticking in his back.

Anyway, we ended up in Flagstaff, on and Indian reservation of all places. A small room above the medical facility there was our new home and that is when I think that I was born. Again. For the third and final time.

Everyone is born once, of course, that is pretty natural. Pretty easy to understand. In the Mormon faith, however, we are also 'born again' into our Spiritual life when we are Baptised. So up until that point I had been born twice, you see.

When I woke up, my body aching, my leg in plaster, in that strange place, in a strange bed, with the heat visible outside my window and noises that I couldn't place – I later found out it was a Tribal song to welcome the new day – ringing in my ears I felt free. I didn't know it then, of course, I didn't realise that I really was free but my spirit – if you will – seemed to guess it. My life had started again. I had been reborn.

/ / /

_Two days ago_

"Do you need a break, Mr James … a drink of water perhaps?"

"No, I am fine, you asked to know about me and Jay, so I am telling you how it started."

/ / /

Native Americans are still called a minority you know. The original people in this little Country of ours who, at one time, were the **only** people here but now they are almost a memory.

Growing up there, in the reservation, I was the minority. The little white child, the Ghost as they called me, or later on the White Shadow when I met Jay, I stood out like a sore thumb. It was hard, don't get me wrong, it was a harsh land and a harsh childhood. My mother had to work long hours and travel for many miles and so I was alone more often than not. Being schooled on the reservation wasn't what most kids would have been ready for either.

… but I loved it.

I was bullied, I was picked on, and I was even occasionally beaten. It was kids doing it however; it was people only a little older than me.

… and my mother never screamed in the night.

Next to what I had gone through, what we had both gone through, however it was paradise.

And then I met Jay and even paradise got a little better.

I know that you probably think that I am mad, but that is simply because you can't understand just how much one person can impact on another; just how much one person can change another person's life for the better. If you could, if you had ever experienced your own guardian angel firsthand, then you would understand what he meant to me.

… what he **means** to me.

His parents had both died a couple of years previously and he had been brought up by his grandfather from that moment. All the other kids treated him differently too, you know. Not because he was 'white' or an outsider, like me, but simply because his grandfather was the most important man in the World. At least in their World which, at the end of the day, is all that we each have.

He was the Shaman of the tribe, you see, and just by being his Grandson, by being trained to follow in his footsteps, Jay was an important man even when he was just a boy. On top of that, though, there was always something 'special' about him. The tribe had a legend that each generation there was a warrior spirit who would be reincarnated … someone who exemplified everything that they held to be the best. Jay, due to the date of his birth perhaps, or maybe because in a tribe of dark-haired and dark-eyed people he had auburn hair – bright like the Sun – and green eyes, so dazzling, was seen to be that person. That spirit.

The Eternal Flame they called him … and because of that, because of who they thought he was more than who he actually was, they held him apart from themselves. Yes, he was held on a pedestal, he was given everything that he wanted and treated as close to royalty as you could get but still he was as alone as I was.

I think that is what brought us together.

From the moment that he got between me and six other boys, all of them bigger than either of us, and fought them down … each and everyone of them … we were inseparable. Well, to be honest, at the start that was mostly because I never let him alone. I am not ashamed to admit that I worshipped the ground that he walked on, back then, but then again who wouldn't?

He was brave, he was strong, and he was beautiful … he saved me from a beating in the same way that my mother had saved me; the same way that she had never been saved. I followed him everywhere; I was his little White Shadow. That was the nickname that some of the other kids called me. I know that they meant it as an insult but I didn't hear it that way. I wore the name like a badge of honour, like a medal.

Jay put up with me for a long time and then even began to talk to me more. I know that he was just as lonely as I was and what started off as just him wanting to break that lonely silence ended up being something more, something wonderful. We became each other's best friend; we became each other's confidante. We became, for want of a better word or a blood tie, each other's brother.

Through all the years between then and now … between then and when he disappeared … that bond only ever got stronger. He was there for me when my mother died, when I thought that I was going to die myself. He got me through that. I was there for him when his grandfather disowned him for giving up a shot at the Olympics for a career in the wrestling ring.

We went through college together and life together.

We … I …

/ / /

_Two days ago_

"… loved him." Rick James, with that whisper, lent his head forward, holding his face in both hands as he tried to surreptitiously wipe the tears away. Even after all this time he still couldn't get some of his father's stench of him; even after all this time he was still obeying his commands and trying to be a 'real' man.

Both Joey Russo and David Johnson, who had sat quietly as Rick had related his childhood years, looked at each other and gave Rick the time he needed to gather himself. When he looked up, his eyes red-rimmed, they deliberately ignored his minor breakdown, realising and honouring his unspoken wishes.

"You say that you loved him?" Russo asked, gently, but couldn't help one eyebrow rising quizzically. Rick James' eyes widened and his mouth fell open as he struggled to find the right words. A faint blush appeared on his cheeks as he stammered and stuttered.

"Yes … I mean … like a brother," he finally managed to get out, barely above a croak, "… like a brother. A brother."

"… and the last time that you saw him was nearly two years ago?" Russo asked, deliberately ignoring Rick's obvious backtracking.

"Yes, the night before he was due to face Dave Hurst." Finally back in territory that he was comfortable with Rick relaxed slightly as he cast his mind backwards to that time. "We had dinner together – Jay made some joke about ordering duck of course – and then we went back to the hotel. When I went to collect him the next morning, to get in some last minute training, he was gone."

"Gone?" David Johnson asked, looking up from his notepad. "What do you mean 'gone'?"

"I mean he wasn't there. His bed hadn't been slept in and his clothes were all still there," Rick said, sharply as he slammed his hands down on the table between them, "but he wasn't!"

"… and he hasn't been seen since?" Russo asked, interjecting himself back into the conversation before it could escalate into an argument. "And you were never able to pinpoint anything that may have hinted that he was in trouble of any sort – nothing unusual at all?"

"I went through all of this two years ago, Detective Russo," Rick pointed out in exasperation, "Jay lived for the business, he loved it, there was no way in Hell that he would voluntarily drop out of it, and no there was nothing unusual at a …" Rick suddenly stopped, his eyes widening as he seemed to think of something.

"What is it?" Russo asked, leaning forwards across the table and staring intently into Rick's face.

"Oh nothing really," Rick said, almost embarrassed, "I just remembered that on the way out of the restaurant a sign fell off the wall and hit him. I thought that he was hurt, knocked out or something, but he bounced back up and was all smiles right away …" His voice trailed off as his face still showed concern.

"But?" Russo prompted, sure that there was something more, something that even Rick himself hadn't thought was important.

"… but he was acting a little stranger right after that," he admitted, his face going pale, "I am pretty sure that he had been knocked out for a few seconds and once he came around he told me to book an ambulance for after his next match … to book it for Dave."

"Is that unusual," David asked, "I mean I know that the wrestling business can be a little cut-throat after all?"

"It might be," Rick pointed out, archly, "but Jay was never like that. He never even deliberately hurt his enemies in a match, let alone a friend like Hurst." His voice sounded strained and his eyes tightened as he bit on his lower lip.

"Is there something else?" Russo asked, quietly, "Something that you didn't think was important then … something that you didn't even think about until now?"

"Yes," Rick admitted quietly, "I never mentioned it because it was so brief, so fast, that I thought that I was mistaken but when he stood up, when he laughed and threatened Dave like that, I looked into his eyes …"

"Go on." Russo prompted, holding up one hand to quiet Johnson before he could say anything. "Go on."

"… I knew Jay since we were both kids, I shared more with him than anyone else in the whole world," Rick murmured, almost to himself, "more even than with my own mother. I knew him completely but when I looked into his eyes, at that moment, I didn't know him at all."

A small shudder, a shiver, passed over Rick and he looked back up into Russo's face, staring deep into the wide set eyes.

"… I looked into the eyes of someone who was closer to me than my own blood," he said as tears filled his eyes, "… and I didn't recognise him at all."

/ / /

_Now_

"That was the weirdest 'cowboy and Indian' story I have ever heard." Johnson pointed out across the small table, nodding his thanks to the young woman who set a steaming cup of coffee down in front of him. "Did you get anything out of it?"

Sipping at his own cup of coffee Joey Russo thought about the question for a few seconds, savouring the bitter aroma that coated his tongue before setting the cup down and placing one hand over its edge. He couldn't remember when he had first started doing that, but it had become almost like a mantra to him; drinking the coffee was the icing on the cake, in his mind, but the cheery on the icing was the disc of heat in the centre of his palm as the steam hit it.

"Yeah, I did," Joey finally said with certainty as he looked into the earnest eyes of his partner. _So different to Rick's_ Joey thought to himself, _so carefree and 'young' still_. The memory of the pain and loss in Rick's eyes from the day before still stayed with Joey and he couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for the broken hearted young man. _He couldn't even admit to himself_ Russo mused _just what he had actually lost._

"… and?" Johnson asked with a smile, breaking his partner out of his thoughts.

"And," Russo repeated with some irony, "I now know the sort of person that this Jay Phoenix was and that Rick James had nothing to do with his mur … his disappearance."

"You were going to say murder, weren't you?" David pointed out, noticing the hastily corrected statement.

"I was, yes," Russo admitted, "but that was just the job talking. This isn't a murder case, Davey, I would bet my career on that."

"… what?" David almost choked on his coffee and had to cough to clear his throat from the scalding liquid that did its best to choke him. Reaching out for a napkin he wiped at the traces of coffee from his mouth and nose and then stared at Russo in evident confusion. "What do you mean it isn't a murder case?"

"Well it nearly was," Russo grinned evilly, "I nearly killed you with your own coffee."

"C'mon Joe," David stated seriously, "don't leave me hanging like this. What do you mean?"

"I mean," Russo said quietly, his eyes clouded, "that not only don't I think that Phoenix was murdered I don't even think that he s dead."

David Johnson was very glad, in that moment, that he had put the coffee cup down because he felt his jaw go slack and knew that if he had had a mouthful of coffee when Russo had said those words that he would have dribbled it all over his forty dollar shirt. He tried to speak but, for a couple of seconds, no sound would come out. Finally he managed to croak one word.

"Fuck."

"Yeah," Russo said through a laugh, though with no humour evident in the sound or in his eyes, "that is pretty much how I felt when I figure it out."

"Fuck!"

"You have already said that Davey."

"… but how," David stuttered, "what … fuck!!"

"Are you sure that you came top of your class in the detective exams?" Russo joked, sarcastically, as he leant across the table and slapped Davey around the side of the head before forcibly closing his mouth with a push under the chin. "Now close your mouth before a fly gets in and let me explain what I mean."

Without conscious volition David Johnson found himself obeying Russo and he closed his mouth and sat back, expectantly. He didn't know what was coming, he couldn't even begin to guess what Russo had figured out over the last month that he had been investigating this case, but one thing that he had learned … though he would never admit it verbally as he knew that Russo's ego was big enough already … was that he was in fro a lesson in police work; he knew that the explanation he was going to hear was sure to be amazing.

"Ember **IS** Jay Phoenix."

David Johnson blinked. The again. He stared at Russo, waiting for the older man to begin. His eyes had seen the man's mouth move, his ears had even heard the words, but his brain just refused to process the information. He was expecting a revelation; he was expecting something deep and mysterious to be expounded upon. He wasn't expecting four, short words. He wasn't expecting what he had just heard.

"What?"

"C'mon Davey, seriously," Russo said with a growl, "pull yourself together. It isn't rocket science you know. This Phoenix guy disappeared two years ago … Ember started wrestling two years ago, give or take. No one has seen Phoenix since that time … no one has ever seen Ember's face at all. They are both wrestlers, and from what I understand both pretty similar in build and style too. Phoenix has been missing for two years but we find blood, fresh blood, not far from Ember's apartment. To top it all off Ember is in the very same tournament that Phoenix was in when he disappeared."

"You had me for a moment there, Joe." David said with a laugh, and then stopped as he realised that Russo wasn't laughing. "Oh, hang on, you are serious aren't you?"

"Yeah, I am. Why?"

"… because it is ludicrous Joe!" David started to tick points off on his fingers as he stared Joey down. "First of all **why** would he do something like that, second of all **how** would he manage to pull something like that off, and third of all **what** about the blood? Why would he leave a straightedge razor, coated in his own blood, in an alleyway?"

"… and more importantly than that, my friends, what fuckin' drugs are you guys on?"

Both David Johnson and Joey Russo visibly jumped as the sibilant voice interrupted them. They had only met the speaker once before, had barely shared more than a couple of paragraphs worth of words with him, but his distinctive voice was instantly recognisable. Looking to the next table they stared, in shock, at a grinning Ember who gave them a nonchalant salute.

"Morning detectives," he grinned, "how's it hanging?"

"What the Hell are you doing here?" Russo growled, the vein in his forehead starting to pound as his eyes tightened. He didn't like surprises at the best of times – as Mike Silver had found out when he tried to throw the secret birthday bash for his fortieth birthday and ended up having to pay for the damages to the bar door when Joey made his exit after the first syllable of 'SURPRISE' was shouted – and to find the man who was at the centre of his current investigation seemingly stalking him did not count as the best of times.

"Just popping in for a cup of coffee my friend," Ember said amiably, "same as you. I would have said 'hi' earlier but you both seemed engrossed in _such_ an interesting conversation that I thought it would be rude to interrupt."

"… and just how much did you hear?" David Johnson took a sharp breath inwards as he heard the calm tone in Russo's voice. He may not have known the man long but he had seen him angry enough times to know that for him to sound **that** calm it could only mean that he was ready to explode in fury.

"Enough to know that you are as stupid as you look, you oaf," Ember said with a wicked grin, "enough to hear that you think that I am that waste of space Phoenix." It was at that moment that David Johnson realised that he was wearing a different mask, one that only covered the top three-quarters of his face, leaving his mouth and chin exposed. Glancing down he noticed the cup of coffee in Ember's gloved hand and started to mention it to Russo. He didn't get the chance.

With more speed and agility than should have been possible for someone his size Russo almost seemed to fly out of his chair as he launched himself across the table to seize Ember by the throat. The momentum, and combined weight of the two, sent them sprawling to the ground, Russo on top of the much smaller man who did nothing to defend himself from the stinging slaps that impacted against his face and head. Russo didn't notice the few customers in the coffee shop back away from him any more than he noticed that a couple of them were taking photos on their mobile phones. He didn't hear a mobile phone ring behind him either, or another familiar voice cry out in shock near the entrance to the shop. All he noticed was the red haze that covered his eyes as he held one hand tightly around Ember's throat; all he noticed was the man who seemed to be at the centre of the case that wasn't a case lying on the ground laughing at him … **laughing**!

"Do you want to know a secret?" Ember croaked, his throat raw and closing as Russo's ham-fists squeezed the life out of him. "You were so close, you know, my friend, so close to the truth." Ember's barely audible words drifted up to Russo and Russo alone, and for a split second he relaxed his grip. That second was more than enough. Twisting his legs up and under him, Ember pushed Russo backwards and then grabbed his jacket, pulling himself up close enough to whisper into his ear.

"I am not Jay Phoenix," Ember said, his tongue brushing against Russo's ear, "but you were nearly there. Just a few seconds of difference and you may have got it right. I am not him, just his brother … just his **brother**."

Russo reached up and grabbed Ember by his shirt and, even sitting down on the ground, had enough power to launch him away from him. Before he could, though, Ember managed to spit out one last retort.

"… and just because I KNOW that you can never prove it," Ember snarled, "I will let you drown in the knowledge that I killed him … I killed Jay Phoenix!"

As he landed in a heap a few feet from Russo Ember heard three things at once, he saw two things happen at once, and he realised something too.

He heard David Johnson shout out to Russo as he held a cell phone to his ear.

"Joey, they have found a body … they think, no they are sure … it is Phoenix's!"

He saw a figure barge into David Johnson and reach behind him, coming up with a gun held in one shaky hand.

He heard the figure call out, in a small and broken voice, one poignant word.

"JAY!!"

He heard David Johnson; as he looked up in horror at the figure holding his gun, cry out to the man.

"Mr James … Rick … don't!"

He realised, a revelation as he stared directly into the never-ending blackness of the gun barrel from only a few feet away, that one other man had heard the words that he had whispered to Russo, that he had intended to be heard only by Russo.

He saw the flash of light …

/ / /

To be continued


	8. Equal and Opposite

The ballad of two  
Part seven  
Equal and opposite

vs AgentDash

/ / /

**Elsewhen**

They say that good things come in three don't they?

Actually please don't bother answering that as it was meant as a rhetorical question; I have never quite understood why it is called a 'question' at all when no answer is either expected nor required but then again it is only one of the many things that I don't understand.

I am not saying that I am unintelligent, or unlearned, quite the opposite if the truth be told. I not only have the luxury of a more than decent education but I have also had many years to cogitate and mull over things. Not just the things that I was taught in the class room, or even by my family and peers, but also simply by observing this crazy little business we call life.

… yes, I realise that I just misused that quote but that is neither here not there and at the end of the day life is the only business that we all share. That we all have in common. As I was saying, though, I am lucky enough to have learned many things over the years, many things about life, but then again I have an advantage, don't I?

Good. You are learning. That was also a rhetorical question. I suppose it is rather unfair of me to have posed a second such thing but adequately answering the first but that is another thing about 'life', you see.

It – life – **isn't** fair.

To answer the second rhetorical question first, as confusing as that sounds and even though by its very nature of being rhetorical it requires no answer, the reason that I have such an advantage is simply that I don't just have to rely on the knowledge gained in one lifetime, like nearly everyone else does. I am already on my second.

That, though, is a story for another time, another place, and rather than procrastinating anymore with my continued digressions I will simply reiterate that good things, indeed, come in threes.

Point of fact, Newton's Laws.

Isaac Newton was acclaimed as the greatest mathematicians to ever come out of England. I am not so provincial, personally, and think that he was one of the greatest mathematicians. Period.

His three laws of motion …

… oh, sorry, you have a query?

Ah, yes, I understand. You are an observant little wonder now aren't you? Yes, yes, yes, officially this could be classed as an 'irrelevance' and we know that, just like nature abhors a vacuum, so to do certain sectors of our little World abhor an irrelevance. However, I have a valid reason. I am not going to explain it to you, of course, you will just have to trust that I know what I am doing.

… or perhaps, if you prefer, pray that I do?

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Newton. A wonderful man, someone that I am really proud of actually, and it is his theories that I am referring to when I say that good things come in threes. To be more specific, it is his third law itself that most appeals.

Third of three.

There is something delightfully numerological about that. Feng Shui for the mind almost, but once more – and you really should get used to that – I digress.

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

There is genius in its simplicity you know. Even the non-scientifically minded can grasp something profound, yet 'right', about that statement. In the wider circle of Newton's peers, of course, it was taken to apply to physics; to 'force' itself. Take for example, the simple motion of sitting down. At least, on the surface, it appears to be simple doesn't it?

… yes, yes, clever you have a brownie point that is another rhetorical question. If you keep preening as you point that out we will never get this finished and while I most certainly have all the time in the World you, my child, do not. Now, if I may continue?

Good.

When you sit down you are actually part of Newton's Third Law yourself. You are part of the firmament of the universe itself. Just by parking your cheeks on something comfortable. You see when you sit down not only is your body exerting a downwards force but the chair itself is exerting an upwards one. There is symmetry of interaction in that simple movement; in each and everything that is ever done.

Action and reaction, you see.

You do see, don't you?

Well … don't you?!

Oh, no, that **wasn't** a rhetorical question this time. It doesn't matter though as this isn't simply about the physical ramifications of Newton's Law. For every physical action there is indeed an equal and opposite reaction, that is fundamentally true.

That is not the end of it, no, really it is only the beginning.

… or is it the end, even I sometimes get confused by that.

Anyway, that also doesn't really matter. What **does** matter is the fact that while Newton was admittedly a genius his mind was constrained by his own fragile, mortal, concepts. I mean no offence by that statement, of course, because while an ant will no doubt think itself the supreme intelligence of 'its' World it is nothing more than an insignificant speck to the man who steps on it unknowing.

So, to others, Newton was that ant.

You see his Third Law doesn't just apply to the physical World, to a man sitting down, a fish swimming, a bird flying or even a planet circling a Sun; no, it goes further than that.

So much further.

For **every** action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Not just 'force', not just the 'physical' World.

To **everything**.

Birth, life, death … and everything that falls between.

Action and reaction.

Equal and opposite.

**Everything**.

/ / /

**Now**

"For fuck's sake, Mike, you cannot seriously be asking me to do this?!" Joey Russo said through clenched teeth, his voice raw, his breathing ragged. "Can't you do something, can't you cover this?!"

Mike Silver sat in behind his desk, using it almost like a shield, and tried to hold himself together.

It was the same desk that he had sat behind for more years than he cared to count, because he knew that if he did he would come to the realisation that he wasn't just 'middle-aged' anymore but that he was closer to death than he was to life. Sometimes, when he looked in the mirror first thing in the morning, he didn't recognise the face that looked back at him.

The lines on his face, the skin that was starting to leather with age, the hair that had turned silver … so many things that shouldn't be there. That weren't 'him'. Inside, despite that aches in his shoulders that he knew was the early stages of arthritis, he was still a young man. He still had his life in front of him.

Deeper inside, so deep that he couldn't … didn't have to … hear it a little voice whispered to him and told him that he was only one year younger than his father had been when a heart attack dropped him in the middle of a sentence.

Only one year younger than his own father's age of death.

That sort of epiphany was not one that he was ready to face; another was the fact that the man in front of him – a man who was as close to him as a brother would have been – was 'dying' in front of his eyes. Watching the sheen of moisture that covered Joey Russo's eyes, seeing his own haggard face staring back at him in a blue-tinted reflection, Mike Silver couldn't help but think back to the only other time … just once in twenty seven years … that he had seen the big man cry.

/ / /

**Twenty six years ago**

"Morning Joey, morning Mikey!"

The woman's eyes shone in the early morning light as he stopped sweeping up the debris on the sidewalk in front of the shop door. Waving to the two young men, their police uniforms pristine, who ambled along across the road as they waved back.

"Morning Mrs O'Shea, nice day for it!"

"Nice day for what," cackled the older woman, her near faded Irish brogue becoming more pronounced, "that is what I would like to know?" Her wink was clearly visible to the two young cops and they couldn't help but laugh along even as they shook their heads. Leaving the sound of laughter behind them they walked along their familiar beat.

"That woman is incorrigible."

"You know, Mikey," Joey said, stopping to stare at his friend, "I would probably agree with you on that." Taking his hat off he swept a hand across his sweaty forehead with a grimace, looking up at the morning Sun and wondering just how hot it was going to get. "If I knew what the Hell it meant, of course!"

"Well if you would spend more time on the books," Mike Silver said with a laugh, "instead of in the ring with that ridiculous mask on, you might just learn a few things!"

"Hey, watch it!" Joey said, glancing around the near deserted street in case anyone was close enough to hear. Thankfully, though, there wasn't. "I would never have told you that if I had thought that you couldn't keep a secret!"

Unlike Mike Silver, whose had inherited enough money from his family to make his life comfortable at least, Joey Russo had found it tough to make ends meet. Going through the academy had been hard enough and even though he was now, finally, earning a salary he still had debts to pay from the last two years. Being a policeman had always been his dream – being broke and barely having enough money to eat one meal a day, however, had not been.

When he had been asked, literally on the street, if he wanted to earn a few extra bucks he had been ready to either arrest the guy or take him into a dark alley and beat the living crap out of him. He was still debating which one to do when the man he had thought was trying to pick him up explained that he was a promoter for a wrestling federation. The look of shock on Russo's face didn't need to be explained – he wasn't sure how he would have explained the fact that he had thought that the man in front of him was a faggot, of course – as the promoter said it was a natural reaction to his request.

"I don't do this often," he had explained to Russo, "but when I bump into someone your size I just can't help myself."

That comment had nearly reduced Russo to apoplexy, a fit of coughing brought on by the fact that if the man had opened with that comment Russo would have definitely answered with his fists. Arresting him would have been a very far away second choice. As it was the small business card that was handed to him did indeed state that Gene Brooks was a bona fide wrestling promoter and the Russo was left staring at it as Brooks walked away. Russo nearly dropped it in the next garbage bin he walked past but then Brook's parting words came back to him.

"Twenty dollars a match"

Maths had never been Russo's strong point but considering that as a rookie policeman he was lucky to clear double figures each month as it was twenty dollars a night sounded like a fortune. All he had to do to earn it was pretend to beat people up.

The card had sat in his wallet for nearly three months. The day that he had gone to his larder and found that even the cockroaches had died of starvation, however, had been the last straw and he had found himself in the ring just two nights later. The bruises to his ribs had been quickly forgotten … nearly as quick as he had realised that wrestling wasn't as 'pretend' as he had first thought … when he had bit into the burger that some of the money paid for.

Nothing had ever tasted so good.

The weeks had turned to months, and the months eventually had turned to years, and he still found himself wrestling on a regular basis. He was no longer in as much debt as he had been but still wasn't as comfortable as Mike … probably never would be, he knew with only a small trace of jealousy … so even though he knew that he could be fired for the moonlighting he couldn't bring himself to stop. The only thing that he had done, to try to protect his 'secret' was to wear a mask every time he fought. That wouldn't help, he realised, if Mike wasn't able to keep his mouth shut.

"There is no-one around, Joey," Mike pointed out, his face earnest as he reached out and squeezed his friend's shoulder reassuringly, "you can trust me you know."

Joey knew that he could trust him. They may have only met each other a few years before but there was a bond between them that was as strong as steel. Partnered together at the academy their differing backgrounds – backgrounds that should have been a divide between them – almost seemed to bring them together even closer. Mike helped Joey with the bookwork and Joey helped Mike get into shape.

"I know that I ca …"

The sound of the single gunshot cut off whatever it was that Joey had been about to say as both men instantly went on alert. A scream, high-pitched and obviously terrified, rang out and without any sign of conscious thought both men sprinted towards the sound. Turning a corner Joey nearly tripped over the small form that was lying on the pavement in front of a pawnbroker's shop; Mike wasn't quite as agile – even though he looked like he should have been – and teetered precariously close to falling over.

Joey's eyes tightened as his mind took in everything in front of him almost faster than his brain could analyse. The door to the pawnbroker's shop was open, the glass frontage cracked and broken. Mike was falling. A woman was kneeling on the sidewalk, her hands coated in blood as she cradled a small form to her chest. Mike was falling. The small blond child – a girl Mike thought to himself – was staring, empty-eyed, into the sky above her, the pool of blood underneath her still form slowly growing larger. Mike was falling. The man in the alleyway beside the pawnshop, the man that Joey only saw thanks to the gleam of sunlight that reflected off the gun that was now being pointed directly at them, had a moustache. Mike was falling over and he didn't see the man. He didn't see the gun.

Joey tried to move but he knew, as soon as he saw the flash from the muzzle slightly before the explosive retort hit his ears, that he wouldn't be fast enough. Still, though, he tried. Thoughts of Christopher Reeves in the famous red and blue costume danced in his mind, a ludicrous image at that time he knew, as he hoped that he too could be faster than a speeding bullet. He knew, though, that he wasn't. That he wouldn't be able to push Joey out of the way. Still, though, he prayed … for the first time since he was a child … that he would be fast enough to get between the bullet and his friend.

He wasn't.

The splash of blood hit him in the face just after his shoulder collided with Joey's back. A split second too late. He barely noticed as Mike spun around on his feet, the force of the bullet's impact negated by the force of Joey himself.

Immovable object met unstoppable force. Except for the fact that Joey could be moved; the bullet couldn't be stopped.

His vision went red and he didn't know, didn't care, if it was from Mike's blood that he could feel running down across his eyes, that he could taste – hot and salty – on his tongue, or from the anger that was rising throughout every iota of his body. Ever since he had been a young boy he had been taught to contain the anger, to cage the beast that lived inside him. He had always been big, had always been strong, and his mother had taught him to always be in control simply so that he wouldn't hurt anyone inadvertently.

He wondered, as he stared directly into the barrel of the gun that was now pointing at his face, what she would have taught him about 'advertently' hurting someone. He felt the grin on his face, his cheeks pulling against the bone against his will, as he realised that he didn't even know if that was a real word.

Bringing his own gun up he calmly pointed it directly at the man in front of him. He didn't even blink as the man … sweat running down his face and a dark patch appearing on the crotch of his jeans … pulled the trigger and barely even realised that nothing happened. His mind had processed the fact that he was still alive, it had realised that not only had a bullet not hit him in the face but none had even left the gun. It had even subconsciously counted the three clicks as the man repeatedly pulled the trigger on the now empty gun.

… what his mind didn't do - as it still heard the mother's tortured cries, as it still saw Joey falling to the ground, as it still tasted his friend's own blood – was stop his finger from pulling the trigger.

For a moment time seemed to stand still. Joey pulled the trigger and then nothing happened. He thought, for a moment that could have been a nano-second or an eternity, that his gun was empty too; that he hadn't taken the safety off. Then the man's face exploded.

Years later that image would still haunt Joey; he would awaken coated in his own sweat and still see the shards of bone literally explode out of the back of the mans head in a rush of vibrant red. He would never forget the Rorschach like web of blood and brain matter that painted the wall behind the man. That, though, was all in the future. At that moment, as he watched the man's life end as suddenly as a candle being snubbed out – even down to the small wisps of smoke that wafted up from the end of his gun – all that Joey felt as he witnessed the carnage that he himself had wrought, was satisfaction.

"… Joey?"

The tears had started to flow from Joey's eyes, unstoppable, as soon as he heard his name whispered. He didn't need to turn around to know that it was Mike; Mike who he had through was dead. Turn around, though, he did, and through the rainbow sheen of his own tears he saw Mike trying to get up. Before he realised it Joey was on his knees, cradling Mike's blood soaked torso to himself and keening in time with the woman by his side; a mirror-image of her own grief. She cried for her daughter's death, of course, while Joey cried for his friend's life.

"Joey," Mike repeated, his voice hoarse, "his gun …"

Mike looked up into his friend's face and saw himself reflected and refracted many times in the tears that coated his blue irises. The moment passed between them, unspoken, and as the sounds of sirens grew closer both men knew that they had another secret to share.

/ / /

**One week ago**

"Do you want to know a secret?" Ember croaked, his throat raw and closing as Russo's ham-fists squeezed the life out of him. "You were so close, you know, my friend, so close to the truth." Ember's barely audible words drifted up to Russo and Russo alone, and for a split second he relaxed his grip. That second was more than enough. Twisting his legs up and under him, Ember pushed Russo backwards and then grabbed his jacket, pulling himself up close enough to whisper into his ear.

"I am not Jay Phoenix," Ember said, his tongue brushing against Russo's ear, "but you were nearly there. Just a few seconds of difference and you may have got it right. I am not him, just his brother … just his **brother**."

Russo reached up and grabbed Ember by his shirt and, even sitting down on the ground, had enough power to launch him away from him. Before he could, though, Ember managed to spit out one last retort.

"… and just because I KNOW that you can never prove it," Ember snarled, "I will let you drown in the knowledge that I killed him … I killed Jay Phoenix!"

As he landed in a heap a few feet from Russo Ember heard three things at once, he saw two things happen at once, and he realised something too.

He heard David Johnson shout out to Russo as he held a cell phone to his ear.

"Joey, they have found a body … they think, no they are sure … it is Phoenix's!"

He saw a figure barge into David Johnson and reach behind him, coming up with a gun held in one shaky hand.

He heard the figure call out, in a small and broken voice, one poignant word.

"JAY!!"

He heard David Johnson, as he looked up in horror at the figure holding his gun, cry out to the man.

"Mr James … Rick … don't!"

He realised, as he stared directly into the never-ending blackness of the gun barrel from only a few feet away that one other man had heard the words that he had whispered to Russo, that he had intended to be heard only by Russo.

He saw a flash of light, the dappled beams of sunlight coming through the window to one side to hit the gun and reflect of in a myriad of colours like a crazy disco-ball. He was dazzled by it, entranced, and for a split-second forgot that it was the barrel of a gun that he stared at, completely caught up in the mirror-like gleam. His chest contracted, his breath completely taken from him as if two large hands had clamped them in a giant's embrace, and a stab of pain exploded between his eyes. For a second he thought that he had been shot but then he realised that if he had been he wouldn't be able to think that thought and instead realised … while realisation was till his … that when people said that many things went through your mind as you faced death they were telling the truth. Admittedly, he thought with some irony, in this sort of situation the last thing to go through one's mind would probably be a bullet but also the memory of one's life was also very possible.

… but someone else's life passing before the eyes?

"JAY!!"

"JAY!!"

"JAY!!"

"JAY!!"

"Jay … JAY … are … you ….. o………… k………………" Rick's voice faded away, as if he was being pulled into the distance, as the mirrored sign from above the bar's door, which had somehow become dislodged, slammed into Jay Phoenix's head and knocked him to the unforgiving concrete sidewalk.

"Of course I am ok Rick, but I still don't think that the 'duck' joke was very funny" Jay said then trailed off as he looked around him.

Just moments before he had been standing in a busy city street, talking to his friend and trying to find something for dinner. Now though he was … somewhere else. Where he was though was most definitely an interesting question. If total and utter darkness could be defined as the total and utter lack of light then Phoenix found himself in a place where shadows never got a foothold, where darkness was a concept that would never be understood.

Stark harsh white was the only thing that could be seen everywhere that Phoenix looked. Three hundred and sixty degrees of whiteness surrounded him, all encompassing. Directly above him and directly below him was made up of the same unending white.

Reaching up to his forehead, suddenly disorientated as he realised that he didn't know if he was standing on a surface or hanging upside down … not even being able to rationalise what WAS up or down … Phoenix did the only natural thing.

He threw up.

Kneeling down … though not even thinking about just how or on what he could be kneeling … Phoenix held onto his stomach as he emptied the little food that was left within him until nothing but dry retching noises came from his throat. Standing up … or at least becoming vertical again … he wiped a hand over his mouth, his face pale.

"Well that was pleasant" came a sarcastic comment from out of the aether.

Spinning full circle Phoenix came face to face with a full length mirror that did nothing to help his disorientation as it seemingly hung in mid-air, unsupported. His face shocked at the sudden appearance of an object that had not been there moments before, Phoenix kept looking for the source of the voice, even going so far as to … gingerly, until he realised that he COULD walk on this surface… walk completely around the mirror itself. Coming back to the front of the mirror he stared in confusion at his own reflection.

"Dammit, what is going on?" he muttered to himself, wiping a hand across his eyes as he tried to clear his head.

"Well all I know is that you are currently making some rather colourful changes to this place, though for me I would have gone with a nice throw rug instead of the pavement pizza my friend" came the sarcastic … yet somehow familiar … response.

Phoenix dropped his hand from his face in shock, looking around him once more and still not finding the source of the voice.

"Not very quick on the uptake are you?" came the voice.

Staring into the mirror Phoenix suddenly realised that his reflection was not doing what was expected. It did not stand the same way he did, it did not move the same way he did, and it most certainly seemed to be speaking for itself. Stepping back away from it, Phoenix's mouth gaped open as he realised that no matter ho much he moved his legs he didn't place any difference between him and the silvery surface. Either he wasn't moving or the mirror was keeping up with him.

"Close your mouth Jay, you look like a fish out of water!" his reflection sneered at him.

"Wha … what it going … who are … where a …" Phoenix stuttered.

"For fuck's sake man get a hold of yourself, anyone would think that you had never talked to yourself before … or perhaps it would be better to say that you had never talked to your BETTER self before!" the reflection snarled, pointing a finger at Phoenix who reeled back in shock again, which elicited a mocking laugh from his mirror image.

"Well it seems that you have the swooning and angst ridden worrying down pat at least Jay, so we can be proud that you are good at something … but I spend most of my days throwing up too. Mostly because I am sick to the stomach of being part of you!" the reflection shouted throw the glass, hammering it's hands against the surface from the other side.

"I don't understand …" Phoenix started to say softly as he played with a ring on his right hand's third finger, rotating it round and round.

"I see that you still have that annoying habit of playing with Mom's wedding ring whenever you are worried Jay … whatever next, are you going to start sucking your thumb, or asking for your blankey perhaps?" grinned the image, as he held his left hand up to show the selfsame ring there.

"No … I .. " Phoenix started to say, but was again interrupted by the image in the mirror.

"I don't care what you were going to say 'Little Flame' it doesn't matter to me, all that matters is that for some reason I am able to finally meet you face to face so to speak. I have spent my whole life … OUR whole life … looking out at you and seeing what a waste of life you are, seeing what a worthless piece of shit you are and wishing that I could grab you by the throat and spit in your face as I force the air out of your lungs. You have wasted EVERY opportunity ever given to you, you have backed down, you have played the nice guy, you have never wanted to rock the boat!" the image ranted at a stunned Phoenix who stood as if the only reason he didn't fall over was because his brain had shut down beyond even that action.

"Always doing what is right, always so concerned about your fans and their expectations … never reaching out and taking what you … WE … fucking deserve. Oh no, Mr high and mighty has to walk the straight and narrow. No drinking, no smoking, no swearing … just being the perfect man for your retard of a grandfather!" it continued, the volume rising as the venom exploded from it's mouth, it's hand pressed flat against the other surface of the mirror.

"Even forgiving that piece of shit Vampir Nosferatu for taking away the one thing that would have made your worthless life meaningful … at least if you had won that title the first time you may have been corrupted enough to fuck some of those bimbos that would have thrown themselves at you. Now when you are given a second chance at that self same glory you are more fucking worried about how your little girly friend Hurst will feel when you beat him than you are about winning this thing for yourself!" the tirade continued as the reflection's face become sweat-soaked as if he was under immense pressure, though it seemed that he only leant against the mirror himself.

"I can tell you this I would have forgiven Vampir, I would have cut his head off and shit down his throat for what he did to you … to us … but someone beat me to it didn't they? I must remember to thank Hessian someday for that. Another thing that I can tell you is that I wouldn't be worrying about Dave Hurst and his little plastic piece of shit, I would be going into the ring to beat him … to hurt him … to break him!" the image suddenly stopped speaking, relaxing into a small smile that brought a gasp of shock to Phoenix himself as he realised that it was his own smile he saw.

"You see, one thing that you have never known, never realised, is that without me you are nothing my friend … my twin … without me, without my anger, without my hate, without my strength you would BE nothing. Sometimes, not very often but normally when you really need me, a little of me slips out into YOUR World you know. When you are in the ring and you need that little extra to win, that is me you know." grinned the image as it leant on the surface, arms folded.

" … but that little isn't enough, I want more Jay, I want everything that you have, everything that you have wasted … ARE wasting … with you posturing and whining … I want it Jay … I want YOUR life!"

As he spat the final words towards a stunned Phoenix, the reflection in the mirror suddenly threw itself towards the surface and unexpectedly … unbelievably … it stretched and strained like wet material. It's hands reached out through the silvery surface towards Phoenix who stood rooted … like a rabbit caught in the headlights … to the spot, his eyes unfocused in shock and his breathing shallow. The fingers of the reflection stretched out further that would have been humanly possibly, their ends becoming clawed, and as one latched onto Phoenix's arm the other scraped across his face, opening three bloody gashes across his cheek.

The pain of these wounds suddenly seemed to awaken and galvanise Phoenix, who suddenly reached up to fend off this waking nightmare, punching and striking out at it with more force than he had ever used in training or combat … almost as if his life depended on it.

… and it did.

With a mocking laugh the reflection ignored all the blows, holding on to the struggling Phoenix like an adult calming a child throwing a tantrum and inch-by-inch it brought Phoenix towards itself, towards the surface of the mirror.

With a shriek that was filled with despair and inhuman pain Phoenix threw back his head, his mouth wide open, as his body touched the surface of the mirror. Instead of stopping, instead of meeting an immutable surface of silvered glass, Phoenix screamed as his journey continued on and into the mirror itself. Becoming one with his own reflection, merging with it … melding with it … moving into it and then through it … slowly but surely, inch-by-inch, molecule by molecule, Phoenix and his reflection passed through each other.

With a final shriek of all consuming agony … harmonised with one of eternal and triumphant glee … everything suddenly went quiet.

Phoenix reached up a hand and winced as his fingers traced the lines embedded into his face, staring in shock at the blood that covered his fingers when he pulled them away. Then with a grin he put his fingers to his mouth as his tongue snaked it's way out of his mouth to flicker against the scarlet liquid.

"Mmmmm … tasty!" he snickered to himself as an almost orgasmic shudder played across his body.

Staring into the mirror, the grinning figure watched as it's reflection curled up into a foetal position … arms wrapped around legs, head ducked into it's chest … and started to violently shake; dry, racking sobs coming from it's unseen face, like a lost and frightened child.

"Pitiful Jay, really pitiful, but don't worry about it you will have plenty of time to get used to this … and just think how much fun Jay Phoenix is going to have now that I am in charge of things!" the standing figure smirked as he looked around at his white and featureless surroundings, marred only by the floating mirror.

A small look of consternation passed across the figure's face, which was quickly replaced, by longing and understanding.

"Time to go now Jay, but I'll be seeing you in the shaving mirror my brother … but for now … GO TO HELL!" the figure snarled as he reached out and punched the surface of the mirror. With a deafening explosion the mirror seemed to implode in on itself, shards of swirling silver glass spinning around and around, like some new born cosmos, until … simply … there was nothing.

Nothing but whiteness.

Nothing but the figure standing in the whiteness and grinning.

Nothing but …

… the swirls of silver caused by the sunlight hitting the barrel of the gun gleamed with metallic grace and Jay Phoenix found himself wondering just what had just happened. He remembered the meal with Rick – just moments before, wasn't it? – and Rick shouting at him just before immense pain had swept over him. Reaching up he felt the back of his head, wondering why he wasn't bleeding, wondering why he was wearing mask – wondering, as his mind finally registered the fact that his best friend was standing in front of him, tears streaming down his face as a gun trembled in his hands … a gun that was pointed right at **his** head … just what the Hell was going on.

"… Rick?" he asked tremulously, his voice sounding harsh to his own ears. So many things happened at the same time that he wasn't quite sure what they all actually were. He saw Rick's eyes widen in shock, recognition and confusion … the differing emotions vying for dominance on his face … at the same time that he saw his friend's finger tighten on the trigger. He heard someone scream out, harsh and unrecognisable as an actual word, and saw a young black man reach out for Rick. He felt something hit him, square in the chest, and knock him spinning across the floor and barely caught a fleeting glimpse of the large man – more fat than muscle – who threw himself on top of him as the deafening blast of the gun firing rang out.

He felt – barely – his head snap back to impact against the unforgiving floor before everything went black and he neither saw nor herd, felt nor noticed, anything more.

/ / /

**Now**

"Cover for you?" Mike asked, his voice soft, "do something?" He ran a hand over his eyes, as much to try to wipe his own burgeoning tears away as to wipe away the image of his friend's own tears starting to well up in his eyes. He heard Joey cough gruffly, and when he looked back up the tears were gone. Wiped away on the back of his hand though their memory was still plain to see. At least to Mike, who knew that he would be as haunted by this moment as he was by one from twenty-six years ago.

"I have done all that I can for you Joey," Mike said in resignation, "it took everything that I could do just to keep you out of jail!"

"But it wasn't my fault …"

"For fuck's sake Joey," Mike said, sharper than he had intended as he watched Joey step back slightly like a whipped puppy, "you attacked someone in public, you assaulted someone in front of many witnesses, and because of your actions you let someone else shoot him!"

"… that wasn't my fault, Mike," Joey said quietly, "I didn't know …"

"You didn't know what Joey?" Mike almost snarled, his emotions running away from him. "You didn't know that people were watching? You didn't know that that guy was going to take David's gun?"

"What didn't you know?!"

"I saved that fucking creep's life – **that** is what I DO know!"

The two men stared at each other, neither one backing down for a few seconds and then Mike Silver sighed.

"Yeah, Joey, you did," he admitted with another sigh, "you saved his life but it was because of you that he was in danger in the first place."

"… but he admitted that he killed Jay Phoenix!" Joey spat spittle onto the desk, where it lay ignored. "He told me that he did it!!"

"… and we can't touch him," Mike stated simply, "not now. There is no judge in the land who will give us a warrant for anything to do with that Ember guy now Joey, because of you. Because of what you did."

"So … that is it?!" Joey's body deflated, his six and a half foot frame suddenly looking small as he sank into himself.

"His lawyer has him in a private clinic where he is 'recovering' from his injuries," Mike said quietly, "we have Rick James in custody for attempted murder and he is saying nothing for some reason, and you …"

He drifted off, his eyes haunted as he stared at his friend.

"Let me save you some time, Mike." Joey's voice was strained, but controlled. He squared his shoulders as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small black wallet. Reaching under his jacket, into the waistband of his trousers, he pulled out his holstered gun and placed it on the table between them. Flipping open the wallet, he stared at the gleaming detective's badge inside it. With resolution he snapped it closed and placed it on the table as well, pushing both objects towards Mike who reached out to grab them and for a moment both men's hands touched.

"I'm sorry Joey," Mike whispered as he took the gun and badge, "but there is nothing else that we … that I … can do."

The two men's stare, and unspoken connection, was interrupted by the assured voice from behind them.

"Maybe not, but there may be something that I can do."

Staring around Joey's large frame as he turned around, both men looked in slight amazement at David Johnson, the rookie detective, who stood grinning at them. Holding up a small clear plastic bag in front of him, he swung it back and forth, the Starbuck's cup inside it clearly visible.

… and so, on the edge of it, was the stain of black lipstick.

/ / /

To be continued


	9. What Lies Beneath

The ballad of two  
Part eight  
What lies beneath.

vs. Jason Snow

/ / /

**Two days ago**

"I remember the first time that I saw snow; I remember how much it _affected_ me.

I know that sounds pretty weird to you guys, living here, but to me – a kid that grew up in Arizona – it was something special; something awe inspiring. I know what you are thinking and you are right. It does snow in Arizona, but what you have to remember is that I lived out in the desert, on the reservation, and while it got cold … bitterly so … I don't remember it snowing there. At the higher elevations it was probably different, and I know now that places like Mount Humphrey have snowcaps all year round, but back then all I knew was the life that I led.

… and that didn't include snow.

One year, though, probably when I was about six or seven, my mother had to attend a conference on something or other in California and we … Jay and me that is … were lucky enough to go with her. I think that she traded the ticket that she had been given for some cheaper ones but however she did it she did it. It was the first vacation that I can actually remember taking and the fact that she agreed to take Jay as well only made it that much more special. Thinking about it now she probably agreed so that she wouldn't have had me underfoot all the time. I don't mean to make that sound wrong, or nasty, in any way it is just that I know what sort of kid I was and if it had just be my mom and me then she wouldn't have got any work done at all. With Jay there I had someone else to keep me occupied.

Anyway, like I was saying, we got on the plane and headed out to California. Obviously I was so excited that I got hardly think straight and was planning everything that I would do when we got there. Surfing was top of my list. Don't get me wrong I loved living on the reservation – as hard as it could be for a white kid – but ever since I first saw surfing on TV I wanted to do it.

I suppose that I really should have checked with my mom about where we were going before I got it into my head that it would be like the movies; that is life though, isn't it? Sometimes the fantasy is better than the reality.

I don't really remember anything much about arriving in California, I was too tired. It was my first long flight and I can vaguely remember getting off the plane and then into a car. The rest is a blur. I know that we arrived at the hotel simply because I woke up in it the next day. Jay and I shared a room next to my mom, the bathroom shared between us both and so any disorientation I felt when I opened my eyes was quietened when I saw him sleeping in the next bed beside me.

It is hard to explain the relationship – the bond – that I shared with Jay back then; that I still share with him. He was the first friend that I made when my mom and me arrived on the reservation. Like I said it wasn't exactly easy. I was so different from everyone else, and I don't just mean on the outside. Sure, being the only white kid on the reservation made me stand out but with everything that I had gone through in my life – with everything that I had seen, heard and even felt at the hands of an abusive father – I wasn't as 'strong' as the other boys my age. Even the younger ones knew that I was different, almost like they could sense it.

I used to think that it was part of their heritage. You know what I mean, the fact that in the past they had been hunter-gatherers; they had been warriors. That sort of stuff is part of the psyche, the racial memory if you will, and even though they hadn't had to use a bow and arrow to survive for many generations – Wall Mart wasn't that far away you know – there was still something about them that kept them apart. There was something about me …

You know, there are two sorts of people in this World, simple as that. There are the strong and the weak. There are the predators and there are the prey. I could see it in their eyes, every time they look at me; every time they laughed at me as I feel for yet another of their so-called 'harmless' pranks. They were the wolves and I was the rabbit – soft, vulnerable, weak. Maybe they didn't know what it was about me that made them feel that way, maybe it was something that they could feel rather than see because even though I was the 'white ghost' to them I don't think that that was the only reason, I think that …

Anyway, like I said Jay was different. When I looked at him I didn't see the same thing in his eyes. He never mocked me or treated me like I was different. Sure, at the start he may have ignored me, r at least tried to, but never out of malice. He was simply that sort of boy. He was an orphan you see, and had been brought up by his grandfather who was not only a pretty powerful man within the tribe itself – he was their Shaman – but was also starting to bring some money into the tribe itself through his business. Jay seemed to be as alone as I did, or at least was a loner while I was simply alone. That all changed, though, on the day that six of the boys from the reservation school decided to get more physical with me than usual. The blood was running freely down my face from the punch to my nose before I even realised that I had fallen over. I could feel the hot patch in my pants as I wet myself, I couldn't help it really, all I could see as they stood over me, laughing … as I tasted my own blood … was my father's face that last night when he …

I don't know what he did, to be honest, I don't even remember him arriving but I do remember his hand on my face, gently holding me under the chin as he looked at my nose. I lost myself in his eyes – they were the most vibrant green that I had ever, have ever, seen – and felt the flush of embarrassment as he caught me staring. He simply smiled as he helped me to my feet and walked me back to my house. He didn't say too much that day, he didn't mention the stain on the front of my jeans, but he didn't need words. He was beside me and he had stopped the beating before it could really begin; I had been thinking of my father as the boys beat me and to my childlike mind it was almost as if Jay had saved me from him when he saved me from them.

It was no wonder that I fell in …

California. That is what I was talking about, wasn't it? When I woke up in the strange hotel room I couldn't actually remember where I was or how I had got there. I felt a small stab of terror in the pit of my stomach thinking – ludicrously – that perhaps I was back at 'home'. Not the reservation, of course, but back there. Back with him. My father. When I saw Jay's face though, so calm in sleep, I was safe.

I got out of bed, softly so as not to wake him, and opened the curtains. I wish that I could explain in words what I felt when I looked out. Everything that I knew about California I had learned from the television. Sun, sea and sand. Looking out of the window I didn't see any of that; in fact, at the start, I didn't see anything at all.

White.

Complete and total.

People assume, you know, that black is the sum of all colours and that white is the absence of any. That isn't right at all. It is easier to think that way simply because if you close your eyes, if you are in a room where there is no light at all, you cannot 'see' the colours. In actuality black itself is the absence of colours.

When I looked out of that window, however, when I first saw the thing that would become known later on that day … mere moments later … as snow I didn't know that. I just assumed that everything had been wiped out. That there was nothing at all there. I know now, looking back, that it was pretty stupid to scream out like I did but hindsight is such a great thing you know. At that time I just though that something terrible had happened and reacted to it.

Jay and my mom were beside me within seconds of each other, each one consoling me as best they could as I stood there – palms pressed to the windowpane – in absolute terror. You would have thought that I would have realised what it was but all I can say in my defence was that I had just woken up and my mind was still filled by the nightmares that haunted me at that time – that still sometimes haunt me – and I suppose that I hadn't quite woken up. It only took a few seconds for my mom to explain what was happening.

When she told us – Jay and me – that we were in Sierra Nevada it made perfect sense to him. He assured me that he was laughing at the situation, and not me, but I wasn't sure. He was always better at geography than I was and I still didn't realise that California had snow. What can I say? I was a little slow on the uptake back then.

What? Why I am babbling on about snow like this instead of answering your question.

Well right after breakfast Jay and I headed out into the grounds of the hotel while my mom got some time to herself to prepare for the seminar. I was fascinated, almost in awe, of the fact that the ground moved, that I left footprints behind in the malleable whiteness. Jay's smile never left his face and I couldn't tell – still can't really – if it was because he was also enamoured by the winter landscape or if it was because he was just enjoying watching my reaction to everything. The thing is that I felt so free there. There was no dark shadow of my father haunting my thoughts, there were no other boys from the reservation there to torment me or call me names … though admittedly, in that place, the name 'white ghost' would have been very apt. There was simply nothing to stop me from loving life itself. I know that sounds very profound for a child but that is simply how I talk about it now. Back then I didn't know what I was feeling but now I do.

It was freedom.

We spent hours out there, exploring the grounds and simply enjoying each other's company. We invented – so we thought at the time, and I was devastated to find out it wasn't true – the concept of snow angels when I accidentally fell down a slight slope and scrambled to get up again. When Jay pointed out the form left behind we laughed until we cried, ice forming on our eyelashes but we didn't care. I threw myself from the next slope that I found, determined to make another snow angel, a better one, simply so that I could hear Jay laugh again. It was a sound that I hadn't heard too much off before; he never really seemed to have anything to laugh about, you see.

He didn't that day either.

It was my own fault; I know that now just as I knew it then. I looked down from the slope and saw the unbroken blanket of snow piled up in dune like waves of pristine whiteness. I didn't think, I just threw myself into the air and let the deep snow catch me, cushion me, embrace me. It didn't, I didn't know – couldn't have known – what lay beneath the snow's surface.

For the second time in one day Jay rushed to my side as I screamed. The snow, obviously, was only a matter of inches deep. It just looked like it was more. When I landed there was nothing really there to break my fall apart from the frozen, and unforgiving, ground itself. I was sure that I was dying – or already dead – as all I could feel was burning, never-ending, all-consuming pain. I didn't know the word back then but now I would call it agony. I had bruised my coccyx, you see, and it felt like I had broken my back. I lay there, screaming and crying … just like I seemed to do far too often … and held onto Jay as he held on to me. I knew that I would die if he left, that the pain would swallow me whole, but he didn't; and so I didn't.

My mother found us like that, a few hours later when it was nearly dark. Many people were out looking for us but it was my mother that found us. Maybe that is a natural instinct that mother's have. She was crying and shouting at the same time. We were both nearly frozen to death, far too close to hypothermia to be safe, but Jay was worse of than I was. He had taken his jacket off and laid it over me, holding me close and giving me his warmth. His life. She told him, she shouted at him as his blue lips chattered uncontrollably, that he was a stupid boy for not going to get help.

He didn't let me go, not even then, he just looked at her and said that he **wouldn't** leave me alone.

He never did."

/ / /

**Now**

"So, what is the news from the lab?" Mike Silver's question was asked in a calm and controlled manner, a tone that belied the emotions that were broiling just under the surface. Just a few weeks ago he had re-opened a closed case, a missing person case that may have become a murder case, and given it to one of his best friends in the whole World to handle. It should have been simple; it should have been just another case for Joe Russo. It wasn't

Jay Phoenix. A wrestler missing for almost exactly two years. His blood – fresh – found coating a straight-edged razor wrapped in a towel. Ember. Another wrestler who somehow seemed to be linked to the case, even though there was no direct evidence to prove that; and with one of the industry's top lawyers working for him seemingly no way to find that evidence.

The only thing tying Ember to Jay Phoenix was his own confession that he had murdered the man; the man that he claimed was his own brother. A claim that couldn't be substantiated, or even used, simply because it was whispered to the detective who was meant to be in charge of the case. The same detective who had been viciously assaulting Ember when he confessed.

The same detective, Mike's best friend, who he had – two days previously – had to suspend. At least he hadn't had to arrest him though; not yet.

"Unbelievable," Mike muttered to himself, "you wouldn't get something like this in the soap operas."

"Sorry Captain?" Mike glanced up quickly, forgetting for a few seconds that David Johnson was sitting across the desk from him, files laid out on its surface.

"Oh, nothing David," Mike said with a sigh, "just talking to myself. So tell me, what did the lab guys find out?"

"Well, the first thing" David said as he opened one of the files in front of him, "is that the body that was found definitely isn't the missing persons."

"Jay Phoenix," Mike added, "he does have a name David."

"Yes sir," David stuttered, "sorry sir." Since working on this case David had been partnered with Joe Russo who had done most of the talking in the meetings with the Captain. He had had the advantage of knowing, and working with, the Captain for many years. David wasn't that lucky and still found it rather uncomfortable to be thrust into the limelight, so to speak.

"So?"

"Well the body is older than the missi.." David started then caught himself, glancing up to the Captain's face before studiously burying himself back into the files. He had them pretty much memorised, and didn't really need to read through them again; it helped, however, to not have to look into the Captain's face. He knew that the old man was trying hard to hide it but the pain of the past few days was evident there. David's grandmother had used to say that the eyes were the windows into the soul and David could see how much suspending Joe had hurt Mike. "…older than Jay Phoenix by about forty years."

"What?" Mike asked, incredulous. He had been given a verbal report that a body had been found not far from the location that the razor had been and that the assumption, therefore, was that it was actually Phoenix. "How the Hell did they make that mistake?"

"I don't know, sir," Mike admitted, "but it looks like they put two and two together …"

"… and got five!" Mike interjected angrily. "So, apart from egg on our faces and some screwed up arithmetic what **do** we have?"

"We have some interesting stuff from the cup that Ember was drinking out of," David said, looking up to see what Mike's reaction would be. He had walked into the office a couple of days ago, just in time to see Russo hand over his badge and sidearm in fact, and announced that he had something to finally get a trace from Ember from. They hadn't been able to get a warrant to check Ember's DNA – and his lawyer had refused point blank to give it over voluntarily – but there was nothing stopping a discarded cup from being brought in. The silver lining to the black cloud that was Russo's attack on Ember in a public place was that the cup had been knocked flying; and picked up by David in the confusion.

"Interesting?" Mike asked with a sigh. Interesting wasn't a word that he would have chosen to use about this case, or anyone involved with it at all. _Fucked up_ he thought to himself, _but then again that is two words._

"Well we already knew that there would be traces of that black lipstick that Ember wears on the cup" David stated, all business now that he was in his comfort zone, "but we also got a pretty good lip impression. Did you know that lip impressions are nearly as unique as a fingerprint?"

"Really?" Mike asked with a small smile. "Imagine that, nearly thirty years in the force and I never realised that."

David Johnson had the good grace to blush, the colour only slightly noticeable on his ebon skin; but more than noticeable enough to Mike.

"… and does that help?" Mike asked, not pushing the joke … or David's embarrassment … any further.

"Actually," David admitted with a sigh of his own, "not really. There are not many lip prints on record so we haven't found a match yet."

"… anything else?"

"Well this is where it gets interesting, Captain," David said with a growing smile. "We found traces of another material mixed in with the black lipstick, something similar. It was white greasepaint, you know, the sort used in theatre or the movies."

"What?" Mike hadn't thought that anything else could surprise him about this case anymore and wasn't sure if he liked being proved wrong about that.

"Yeah, white makeup," David reiterated. "The lab guys have tested it and are positive that it has to have come from Ember himself as it is mixed in with the black paint."

"So," Mike asked with obvious confusion, "what does that give us?"

"Well," David stated simply as he closed his file and stared directly – for the first time – into the eyes of the older man, "it tells us that Ember isn't just hiding behind the mask."

/ / /

**Two days ago**

"Mr James," the plain clothed policeman asked, his voice calm, "that is all well and good but telling me about your childhood experience of winter isn't answering the question is it?"

Rick James sat back in his chair as he stared at the two men across the table from him. It wasn't his first time in the police station, he had been here a few times in the last few weeks, but it was his first meeting with these two men.

… and his first time in custody as well.

Prior to that he had either been chasing the police officers in charge of looking for his missing friend or actively helping them put pieces of history together. That was then, though, that was before he had taken a gun from one of them and tried his best to blow a man away in cold blood.

That was before he had heard the man known only as Ember admit to killing his best friend, Jay Phoenix. Rick admittedly didn't remember every second of that day but he could recall the words that were whispered by Ember almost as if he was speaking there and then.

_"I am not Jay Phoenix," Ember said, his tongue brushing against Russo's ear, "but you were nearly there. Just a few seconds of difference and you may have got it right. I am not him, just his brother … just his brother."_

Russo reached up and grabbed Ember by his shirt and, even sitting down on the ground, had enough power to launch him away from him. Before he could, though, Ember managed to spit out one last retort.

"… and just because I KNOW that you can never prove it," Ember snarled, "I will let you drown in the knowledge that I killed him … I killed Jay Phoenix!"

He remembered seeing the gun poking out of the waistband of the black detective's toursers and even remembered thinking to himself how easy it would be just to take it from him. He didn't actually remember doing that, but the feel of the cold, hard, metal in his hands was stil with him.

So, too, was the pressure of his finger squeezing the trigger.

For a split second, as the fat detective – Joe Russo – had pushed Ember out of the way of the gunshot, Rick could have sworn that he heard Ember call his name; could have sworn that he had heard Jay's voice. He knew, though, that that wasn't possible. That that wasn't true.

Jay Phoenix was dead. He had heard the police man say so and had heard Ember say that he had killed him.

Jay was dead and Ember was still alive. Jay was dead and so, for Rick, nothing else really mattered anymore.

"Mr James," the detective prompted, "just tell me, please, why did you try to shoot that man?"

Rick looked up at the detective and tried to wipe the tears away from his eyes but cursed silently, frustated, as the chains that locked his wrists together throught the hoop on the leather belt around his waist pulled him short. His shoulder's slumped, his body language showing the defeat that hs spirit had already admitted.

"He took everything from me," Rick said quietly, "he killed him and then lied about it. He said that he was Jay's brother …"

"He didn't kill anyone that we know off, Mr James," the detective interjected, "I don't know where your Jay Phoenix is but I can tell you that we haven't found his body."

"… but I heard that cop say …"

"It was a mistake, Mr James," the detective admitted, "I don't know whose body they found but it wasn't Phoenix. So out of your _reasons_ for trying to kill that man the only one left is that he 'lied' about it. That isn't a good reason to shoot someone, is it, even if it is true."

"I know it is true," Rick almost shouted, "he said that he was Phoenix's brother but that isn't true … Jay never **had** a brother!!!!"

/ / /

**Now**

"So you are telling me that we have Ember's lip print that we cannot identify with anyone, and some of his DNA from that cup" Mike stated simply, tiredness evident in his voice, "as well as traces of makeup, and nothing else?"

"Well …" David started, then gave up with a shrug, "yes, that is about it sir."

"… and the only thing that we have to even link this so-called 'crime' to Jay Phoenix" Mike pointed out, "is his blood found on that razor near Ember's apartment?"

"Have you stopped to consider that the two things could be linked in themselves?"

David and Mike both stopped and stared at the elderly man who stood in the doorway. A crisp grey Armani suit was worn causally with an open shirt and a long white plait, nearly to the waist, fell over his shoulder and kept his hair tidy. Weathered brown skin gleamed and piercing green eyes stared out across a hawkish nose.

"Who the Hell are you," Mike asked in consternation and confusion, "and what on Earth are you talking about?"

"Earth and Hell, how apt" the older man muttered to himself before addressing the two men directly. "My nom-de-plume, so to speak, is the Shaman, but you may call me Keme Red-Eagle. I am Jay Phoenix's grandfather."

Seeing the shock and confusion on the two men's eyes the older man, Jay Phoenix's grandfather, approached them both and stood beside the table, his eyes hooded and haunted.

"As for what I am talking about," he stated quietly, staring directly into the eyes of Mike Silver, "can only be answered with a question of my own."

"Have you heard of the chimera?"

/ / /

To be continued


	10. Dissonance

The ballad of two  
Part nine  
Dissonance.

/ / /

"A camero?" David Johnston said in confusion. "Sure, my dad always wanted one of those when I was growing up."

"No, my child, not a car." There was a slight edge of amusement around the old man's eyes as he spoke. His weathered skin, already creased with a spider's web of fine lines, crinkled around his still bright green eyes. "I asked about something very different indeed; I asked about the chimera."

"I don't really see what chimeras or cameros has to do with anything Mr …" Mike Silver's voice trailed off has he stood up to face the older man across the table. In so many ways they actually resembled each other. Both were roughly the same height, with their years clearly mapped out across their respective faces. The length of their hair may have been different but they both shared the same distinctive white colour. It was in the eyes, however, where the main difference was most noticeable. While Mike's eyes were rimmed with a dark edge, tiredness very clear within their dark depths, the man who faced him was different. The brightness and clarity of his eyes belied his obvious age but this was not what marked him as different to Mike; it was the depth of pain that was evident within. Pain that he did nothing to hide.

"Red-Eagle. Keme Red-Eagle," the older man repeated, patiently, "but you can call me Shaman if you prefer, most people do."

"What," David Johnston interjected, still obviously confused, "most people prefer calling you the Shaman?"

"No, most people don't prefer calling me the Shaman," came the gentle reply, no hint of an exasperation evident in the old man's tone, "most people simply do call me by that name."

"Why?"

"… because that is what I am." The Shaman's voice trailed off as he blinked twice and rubbed a liver-spotted hand across his eyes. With a sigh he sat down and rested his head in his hands. "Could I possibly have a glass of water?"

With a quick nod of his head towards David Johnston, indicating that he should accede to the request, Mike Silver sat down on the edge of the table.

"Are you ok Mr Red-Eagle?" he asked, after Johnston had left the room.

"I am fine Captain Silver, just tired." The old man looked up at him, with a sigh, and nodded once. "Just very tired."

"You know who I am?" Silver questioned as his lips pursed slightly, whitening under the pressure.

"Well," the Shaman said with a laugh, "your name is on the door after all." The Shaman nodded towards the door, and the bronze nameplate on it, just as David Johnston walked back through a jug of water in one hand and an empty glass in the other. Placing the glass on the table in front of the Shaman, David poured out a measure of the blue-tinted liquid and then placed the jug in front of him.

"… and it helps," the Shaman admitted as he raised the glass to his lips, "that I came looking for you." His eyes half closed as he drained the glass in one measured gulp, his Adam's apple prominently bouncing in his thin neck. With a satisfied sigh he placed the glass on the table in front of him and then folded both hands on the table, calmly, as he looked back and forth between the two men.

"Ok, ok," Mike said quietly, holding up one hand, "let's go back to the start here."

"An excellent place to begin." Acknowledged the Shaman with a smile.

"So, you come here telling us that you are Jay Phoenix's grandfather," Mike stated as the Shaman nodded his acknowledgement, "but give us two riddles."

The Shaman's left eyebrow rose quizzically but before he could reply Mike Silver interjected.

"You told us that there are things linking Jay Phoenix and Ember together," Mike clarified, "which is actually more of a riddle than anything else that you said."

"Even more than that camero … erm … chimera thing?" David Johnston queried.

"You see, "Mike continued, ignoring his detective, "we have been trying for a few weeks to link those two people together but so far we haven't had any success. We found Phoenix's – your grandson's – blood on a razor near Ember's apartment and they are both wrestlers but apart from that we have no evidence to link the two together at all."

"We have what that freak told Joe!" David interjected, his voice rising in visible ire. "He admitted that he kill…"

"Sit down Detective Johnston!" Cutting David off, Mike Silver's inflection was suddenly all business, very different from the way that he had spoken to David when it had just been the two of them in the room.

"But…" David continued. Slapping the table with one outstretched hand, Mike Silver barked out his command again, a note of finality in it.

"I said sit down!"

A strained silence filled the room as the three very different men sat around the table and pointedly ignored each other for a few seconds. Mike and David exchanged a heated glance where no words were needed as the young rookie detective almost visibly wilted under the gaze of the senior officer. The Shaman simply poured himself another glass of water and took a small sip of it.

"If I may interject here, Captain," he asked, softly, "there is no real need to silence your man you know; I can guess what it is that this _Ember_said." He took another small sip of the water as both policemen suddenly broke of their silent argument to stare at him.

"You what?" Mike asked, his composure slipping slightly.

"He probably said that he killed my grandson." The statement was made with no emotion at all, as if the Shaman was simply commenting on the weather, but the impact of his words belied the calmness of their delivery. David Johnston leapt to his feet while Mike Sliver leant across the table, his eyes widening.

"How the Hell did you know that?" Johnston asked, and then winced as Silver turned his gaze upon the young man once more.

"I didn't actually 'know' it," the Shaman admitted with a small smile, "at least not until you just confirmed it for me my dear boy." David Johnston's' face fell and he had the good grace to flush in embarrassment. Mike Silver, on the other hand, simply steepled his hands in front of his body and leant forward again.

"Ok Mr Red-Eagle," Mike almost growled and David couldn't help noticing the similarity in tone between the Captain and the suspended Joey Russo, "I have had enough of the riddles, so why not just get right to the point?"

"The point is, Captain," the Shaman stated simply as he stared directly into the dark eyes of the man across the table from him, "that the reason why you can find nothing to link the 'murder' of my grandson to Ember is simply that there **was** no murder …"

Mike Silver's fingertips whitened as they pressed harder against each other and he ignored David Johnston's sharp intake of breath. He didn't need to glance across at the younger man to know that his face would be a mask of confusion, just as he didn't need to keep staring into the deep jade pools that were the Shaman's eyes to know that he was telling the truth. He may not know what was going on, but the simple fact of the matter was that nothing had made sense to him since the start of this case. Nothing, that is, apart from the simple statement from the Shaman himself. Even so the Shaman's next words rocked him back and brought confusion crashing down around his ears.

"… in fact there is no Ember either."

/ / /

The straps bit into his ankles and wrists, constraining his body and holding his tightly in their leather embrace.

He was strong, stronger even than his tightly muscled body looked, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't lift himself more than an inch from the cot on which he rested.

Flopping back onto the sweat drenched sheets he glanced around the room, as much as the neck restraint would allow, for what could have been the hundredth – or thousandth – time that day and saw that nothing had changed.

A small cabinet rested a few feet away from the bed, the lamp on it affording the room with the only illumination. Shadows played all around the room itself, burgeoning out of the deeper darkness left behind by the cheap bulb as they danced macabrely every time he moved.

On the other side of the bed stood an array of machines, silent and dark. He remembered, barely, when he had first awoken in the room to see their screens filled with moving lines of light, to hear their whines and buzzes but that seemed like so long ago. Like a lifetime ago. At that time the room had also been filed with other people, moving around in a haze of half-remembered pain and drug induced confusion. His body had been free, then, and he was able to do whatever he had wanted; whatever he had needed. When the nurse – blue eyes and dyed blonde hair he recalled – had tried to take his mask from him, what he had _needed_ to do, what he had been _able_ to do was simple.

He had lashed out.

The sound of her jaw breaking as his foot connected with her small, pretty face had been satisfying and the people in the room had stopped what they were doing for a brief instant. He had taken that instant to slide from the bed and to his feet, intending to run towards the door and make his escape. He didn't actually know, at that time, what he was escaping from, but he knew that if the people in the room wanted him to stay so that they could take **it** from him he would do anything to stop them.

However, it was his body that ended up stopping him.

As his feet connected with the floor he tried to propel himself away from the bed, away from the people, but he wasn't able to. It felt like he was mired in mud, that he was trying to run through molasses, and after only two steps he felt his knees buckling. As he collapsed to the ground his hands went to the sharp pain, that had only just began to register in his mind, centred around his side and the last thing that he had seen as the men crowded around him was the blood that stained his palm.

When next he had awoken he had felt calm and, while still aching, a quick feel of his side had allowed his fingers to trace the raised line of a stitched wound. It was then that it had come back to him.

The coffee house.

The two detectives.

The sap from _his_past with the gun.

The shot itself – deafening – and the fact that the detective … the fat one … has tried to push him out of the way.

Tried and failed.

The bullet, he knew, had hit him in the side.

His fingers continued tracing his own form, delicately and gently, and he realised that apart from the stitched wound in his side he was unhurt. It was only when his fingers reached his face that his breathing became shallow and fast; panicked. Flesh met flesh, skin met skin, and it was then that he knew that it was missing.

His mask was gone.

Glancing at his body he felt his gorge rise as he saw the tanned and healthy skin gleaming across muscles that were clearly visible.

He knew that he was supposed to be pale, was supposed to be without colour but here he was with skin that could only be called 'red'.

A strand of hair fell across his face and the bile that had been racing up through his throat finally reached his mouth and he tasted his own vomit as he stared in abject horror at the locks that gleamed auburn in the reflected light of the room.

He knew that his hair was suppose to be pale – white – was supposed to be without colour.

Sitting up he felt the scream rising in his chest but it was bitten off, choked into silence, as he stared at the wall across from his bed, at the gleaming surface that filled it, completely, instead of bricks and mortar. He knew that his mask was gone, he knew that they had stripped everything of himself while he had been unconscious and left nothing behind; still, when he stared into the mirrored wall he wasn't prepared for what stared back at him.

He was Ember, he knew that, but that wasn't who looked back at him. Instead it was _him_, instead it was the man that he knew he had killed.

It was Jay Phoenix.

His own vomit coated his body as he leapt from the bed, tearing at the freshly stitched wound but ignoring the trickle of blood that began to flow down his naked torso, and threw himself at the mirror. His lips were drawn back, feral-like, and his fingers formed talons as he thrashed against the metallic surface – fought against the reflection that shouldn't be … couldn't be … and wasn't aware of the small stinging jab in his arm as an unseen medic filled his blood stream with a drug that quickly sent him into unconsciousness.

He barely heard the nurses complain that they had only just got him cleaned up, that they had taken ages to remove the stage makeup from every inch of his body and the dye from his hair. He barely felt them place him back in the bed and close the restraints around his body.

All he felt, as the darkness took him was despair.

Each and every time he awoke he felt the same. If he was alone or if they were there it didn't matter. They didn't listen to him anyway, no matter how much he cajoled, how much he threatened or even how much he begged. They didn't listen. They didn't give him back his mask.

When his screams became too much they turned the lights off and plunged the room into near darkness. All so that he couldn't see the mirror. All so that he couldn't see who stared back at him. Who waited for him.

The straps bit into his ankles and wrists, constraining his body and holding his tightly in their leather embrace. He knew that he couldn't break free; he knew that he wasn't strong enough.

Just as he knew who was waiting for him in the darkness.

/ / /

"He **is** Jay Phoenix."

For a few seconds the Shaman wasn't sure that his words had been heard, let alone listened to, but as Mike Silver continued to stare at him he realised that the words had indeed been taken in.

Now he wasn't sure if they were being believed.

"I know what you are thinking …" he started to clarify, only to be interrupted as Mike Sliver barked out a coarse laugh.

"Somehow, Mr Red-Eagle," he said with another laugh, "I sincerely doubt it!"

"I can understand that you may be in shock, sir," David Johnston interjected gently, "with your grandson's missing person case becoming a murder case, but I can assure you that Ember is not Jay Phoenix."

"Just how can you 'assure' me of that?" the Shaman asked, pointedly, his eyebrows arching.

"We have traces of both men's DNA and …" Johnston started to explain, but the Shaman interrupted.

"… and they don't match, which brings us right back to where we started, doesn't it?" The Shaman asked his question to both men, looking back and forth between them as he slowly folded his arms and sat back into the chair.

"I told you that there was a reason that there was no link found between the two men, didn't I?" he asked but again didn't wait for an answer. "I also asked you a question; I asked if you knew what a chimera was."

"It is a monster from Greek mythology," Mike Silver admitted in defeat, hoping that by humouring the man he would get to the bottom of whatever it was he thought that he knew. "Part goat, part serpent and part lion if my memory serves me, but I don't understand what that has to do with anything!"

"It has nothing to do with this, Captain Silver," the Shaman admitted as Silver stood up, his patience finally exhausted.

"Ok Mr Red-Eagle, I think that it is time that you left now and let us get on with this case." Mike's voice was clipped as he tried hard to remain polite to the man who he now assumed was borderline senile. He reached down to help the old man to his feet but was amazed as the Shaman's hand clasped over his own and the strength that was there.

"If you had let me finish, Captain," the Shaman said as he held tightly to the captain's hand, "I could have clarified for you that while your knowledge of ancient cultures is admirable it is not the chimera of which I speak."

Mike let go off the Shaman's arm, indicating that he should continue.

"I am talking about the real chimera, Captain," the Shaman said softly, as if pained, "I am talking about why you have two different traces of DNA from one source."

"I am talking about how my grandson – Jay Phoenix – can also be the 'monster' Ember."

/ / /

To be continued


	11. Harmony

The ballad of two  
Part ten  
Harmony.

/ / /

"My daughter was such a beautiful child."

Keme Red-Eagle's eyes misted over as he stared into space above Mike Silver's head; seeing, in his own mind, through time and it was obvious that he could see his daughter's face as he spoke of her.

"I know that all parents say that, of course," he continued more to himself than to Mike, who sat silently patient as he waited for the older man to get to the point of his visit to the police station. He had already managed to get David Johnston, his new rookie detective, to confirm that he was indeed Jay Phoenix's grandfather but that was as much real detail as he was sure of. Everything else that the elderly Native American had said had been confusing at best. Greek monsters, a link between Phoenix and Ember's DNA and then finally Ember actually **being** Phoenix. It was all so ludicrous that Mike Silver knew that it couldn't be true.

Just as he knew, as he listened to the old man's voice, that he himself … this self-proclaimed Shaman … believed that it was.

"Sorry?" Mike stammered as he realised that the Shaman was watching him, as if waiting for a reply to something that he obviously hadn't heard. Mike cursed himself, silently, not sure if it was age or just recent events catching up with him that had led to his carelessness. He knew that if one of his men had drifted off while listening to a suspect's confession he would have slapped them around the back off the head and berated them until their knees quaked. The difference was, he knew, that he wasn't a rookie and this man in front of him wasn't a suspect. Just what he was, though, Mike wasn't really sure.

"I said that while all parents say that their children are beautiful," the Shaman repeated, patiently, "in this case it was also the truth." Reaching into his suit jacket pocket he pulled out a smooth leather wallet and after flipping it open he reached inside and pulled out two photographs. Dropping the first one on the table he slid it towards Mike, who picked it up and stared at the two figures captured forever in celluloid colour.

"She is beautiful," Mike Silver agreed honestly. The young woman who stared out at him could have been a model apart from the fact that her easy smile and appearance of ease in her own body didn't seem to harbour an ounce of pride. She was as beautiful as a moonlit night or a wild deer rather than a model. "Who is the man with her?"

"That was her husband, Captain Silver," the Shaman said with a sigh as he took the photograph back and gazed at it for a few seconds. "Jay's parents of course. She was an anthropologist you know, and he was an archaeologist. My People believe in spirits reaching out to each other before they meet, even before they are born and they were living proof of that. They were in love and inseparable from the moment that they first laid eyes on each other and when they looked at each other it was almost too much to watch – their love shone like fire. They are both dead now, the second tragedy to impact on them all."

"I'm sorry," Mike said consolingly, "the file mentioned that you were his next of kin but didn't actually state anything about his parents."

"They were killed in a car crash when Jay was just seven years old," the Shaman clarified softly, the pain still evident in his voice. "It is hard to believe that it has been so many years, it still feels like only yesterday I was holding Jay's hand as we said goodbye to them both." The Shaman's voice faltered as he continued to stare at the photograph.

"The next time that we said goodbye to them," he continued, his voice barely above a whisper, "I knew that it was the last one. It was the day that we buried them."

"It must have been hard for you," Mike prompted, seeing a way to steer the conversation back on track, "having to raise your grandson alone like that."

"Oh I suppose in some ways it was," the Shaman said as he put the first photo away, still holding on to the other, "but in so many other ways it wasn't. I had lost my daughter, Jay had lost his mother and father – but together we survived. We had each other." He handed the second photograph to Mike who took it and smiled back at the Shaman.

"He looks like his mother," Mike said as he stared down at a photo of a youth. It was hard to tell exactly how old he was but Mike noticed instantly that while the child was smiling for the photo his eyes didn't mirror it. Deep and a piercing green they seemed lifeless, hollow; full of loss.

"… but there is enough of his father there to make my heart ache doubly every time I look at my grandson," the Shaman admitted as he took the photo back. "This was taken only a few months after we laid his parents to rest."

Mike nodded, knowing that he was right about the boy's eyes. He had seen it before, many times, when he had had to tell parents that their child had been killed in a drive by shooting, or tell a wife that their husband had been killed in the line of duty. In all his years, however, he had never seen it on anyone so young.

"It must have been a lot for someone so young to deal with," Mike stated finding it hard to shake off the sympathy he felt at a child having to go through the pain of losing both parents like that.

"It was," the Shaman agreed with a sigh, "but it was something that Jay was born dealing with captain." Placing the photo on the table in front of him the Shaman folded his hands neatly beside it, looking directly into the Captain's eyes for the first time in many minutes. Once again Mike Silver was taken aback by the clarity of the man's gaze, by the strength of will he saw contained there.

"I don't understand," he admitted as he glanced away. Looking up at the clock on the wall he realised that David Johnston must surely be on his way back to the room any moment. When the Shaman had first started talking about DNA and Ember and Jay Phoenix not only sharing a link but also actually **being** the same person … something that the evidence contradicted … he had sent the young detective down to the crime lab to bring up one of the specialists.

"It is like I said earlier," the Shaman said simply, "his parents death was the second tragedy to strike my grandson."

"The second?" Mike queried gently, again hoping to draw the Shaman further.

"Yes," the Shaman continued, the prompting unnecessary, "the first was the death of his twin brother."

/ / /

**Three weeks ago**

"What the Hell is this?"

"This, doctor, would be a patient who – unless you stop asking inane questions – may just bleed to death on your watch!" John Sinclair managed to put a verbal sneer into his statement as he stood just inside the entrance to one of the City's most prestigious private medical centres. Dressed smartly, in a three-piece Armani suit that he knew had cost more than some of the nurse's monthly salary, he managed to retain an air of calm aloofness even despite the figure that was draped … slumped and barely conscious … over one shoulder and around his neck. As another droplet of claret fell from the man's side to drip on the once pristine floor below, John arched one eyebrow pointedly at the doctor in front of him.

"Just so that you know," Sinclair panted, the strain of physically holding the man vertical starting to tell, "for every drop of blood my client loses on these premises I am taking another thousand of your fee!"

The doctor was galvanised into action … more, Sinclair thought to himself, or at least hoped, simply because his Hippocratic Oath had kicked in and not because of the threat to his no doubt hefty medical bill … and a gurney was brought forth as two nurses helped take the semi-conscious man from Sinclair's grasp. Sinclair sighed in relief, flexing a shoulder as he tried to get the circulation back into his arm. Glancing down he tutted as he saw the blood stains on his jacket.

"What happened?" the doctor asked as he gestured for the gurney to be brought into a side room.

"I would have thought that was obvious," Sinclair said as he wiped at the stains with a handkerchief that he pulled from his lapel pocket, "Ember managed to leak all over me. This won't come out you know; it is ruined. Ruined!"

"I meant what happened to this man!" The doctor said threw clenched teeth as he stared in confusion at the man who lay prone beneath him. Covered from head to foot in a material that looked like it could have been the love child of a wetsuit and a set of biker's leathers there was only a small amount of skin visible; and that was as pale as alabaster. "… and just what the Hell is he wearing?"

"That would be typical fare for a wrestler, one would assume," Sinclair said as he watched the doctor take a pair of scissors in hand and start to cut the skin-tight clothing away from his patient, "and as for what happened to him that is simple. He was shot."

The doctor's hand stopped moving for a fraction of a second and then he started cutting again, with even more speed.

"Get that mask of him," he barked at a nurse before looking back at Sinclair, "and as for you, tell me about this. What was he shot with … when?"

"I recommend that you don't touch that mask," Sinclair said simply and the nurse paused just as she started to peel the material away from the man's face. "My client cherishes his anonymity, you see, and he left standing instructions that his mask was not to be removed. Under **any** circumstances."

"Even if it costs him his life?" the doctor asked tersely as he finally cut away the material and exposed Ember from his neck right down to just above his groin. His eyes widened as he took in the alabaster skin that was no visible as well as the red raw flesh that framed an array of jagged stitches; blood flowed freely from the hole as pus seeped out slowly.

"Well," Sinclair continued, seemingly oblivious to what was happening in front of him, "he actually never clarified that part. He was, though, very clear about the fact that the removal of his mask could cost me my life."

"What?" the doctor picked up some gauze from a proffered tray and started wiping at the wound, trying to clear the blood and pus away from it so that he could get a better look.

"I don't know if he was serious, of course," Sinclair stated with a shrug of his shoulders, "but he did definitely say that he would kill me if it was removed. I suppose that it could just have been a turn of phrase; a jest if you will."

The doctor placed a clean piece of gauze over the wound and indicated that one of the nurses should hold it in place before he turned to the man in the expensive suit and held one bloody hand up in front of his face, pointing at him as if to punctuate his every word.

"Ok, I want to know just what the Hell is going on here," he said between clenched teeth. "I want to know who you are, who this man is, and what the Hell happened to him … and I want to know right now!"

"There is no need to shout, dear man," Sinclair said as his face wrinkled at the bloody hand directly under his nose, "all you had to do is ask. To answer your questions my name is John Temperance Sinclair the Third and I am 'this man's', as you call him, lawyer. His name is Ember … and before you say anything yes I do realise just how absurd a name that is but as I am sure you have guessed by his garb my client is not exactly your regular Joe. He is, simply put, a wrestler and we have just come from a bout, believe it or not …"

"I don't believe it," the doctor said as he interrupted. "There is no way that this man got injured in a sporting event, he has been shot!!"

"I never said that he got injured in a sporting event, doctor," Sinclair pointed out, "you interrupted before I could answer your last question. 'What the Hell happened to him' wasn't it? You already answered that, he got shot."

"That wound is at least a few days old, possibly even a couple of weeks," the doctor stated as he pointed at Ember's torso, "not only has it started to heal but some butcher has tried to stitch it closed and let it get infected. Just what sort of back street quack did that?"

"Oh," Sinclair said simply, "that would have been Ember himself." The doctor's mouth opened and closed a few times as he tried his best to take this in. He glanced from Ember's wound, to Sinclair and then back again. Shaking his head, as if to clear it, he glared at the man in front of him.

"Are you joking with me?" he asked simply, his voice quiet.

"Not at all my god man," Sinclair said with a smile, "I actually couldn't believe it myself but I watched him stitch that up myself, just so that he could take part in that wrestling match I was telling you about … and then right afterwards, as he came out of the ring, he almost collapsed in my arms."

"Why the Hell would anyone do that?" the doctor asked incredulously.

"I don't know why 'anyone' would do that," Sinclair admitted, "but I can tell you why _he_ did it."

"… and?" the doctor prompted as Sinclair's voice trailed off.

"He is **completely** crazy!"

/ / /

"When my daughter told me that she was pregnant it was one of the most wonderful days of my life."

Mike Silver rested back in the chair and stared intently at the old man's face as he related his story. He wasn't sure where it was going, in fact he didn't have a clue, but he knew that he was closer at this very moment to finding out just what was going on with Jay Phoenix … with Ember … with the whole case … than he had been at any point since it had been reopened.

"I had only had one child, you see," the Shaman continued, again almost as if he was talking simply to himself, "as my wife had died from cancer just a few years after giving me my daughter. After that she became my World just as, many years later, my grandson became my whole universe."

Mike Silver said nothing, knowing that he didn't need to prompt the Shaman anymore. He knew that the answers to his questions were coming; he just didn't know if they would simply lead to even more.

"This was nearly thirty years ago, of course," he continued, "and there was no such things as ultrasound but we didn't need those things. Our People had been doing without modern medicine for many thousands of years and we still knew enough of the old ways. To my daughter I was not just her father but also her Shaman; her medicine man."

"The look in her eyes, the wonder and delight, when I told her that she was having two sons, is still with me today." The Shaman sighed deeply, moisture visible in his eyes and his mind wandered further back in time, almost as if he was actually reliving it rather than remembering it.

"As much as twins are relatively rare for your people, Captain Silver," the Shaman said with a small smile, "they are actually even more rare among my own."

"Really?" Mike asked softly.

"In many, many generations of my family," the Shaman stated, "there is only mention of one set of twins, a boy and a girl. So on top of the amazing – the unique – honour of bearing twins, of bringing two Spirits in harmony into this World, my daughter also knew that the auguries and portents were clear."

"Sorry," Mike asked in some confusion, "I don't understand."

"The signs in the stars," the Shaman clarified, his voice sounding suddenly a lot like an experienced teacher, "the Spirit of the North Wind, they all pointed to the fact that this birth would be something special indeed." The Shaman nodded to himself and Mike had to force himself not to smile cynically at the man's obvious belief in the supernatural. He had thought that the term 'Shaman' was nothing more than an affectation but now he realised that the man in front of him probably believed that he was indeed a Sham in actuality.

"Ah," Mike said, thinking of nothing better to say, "I see."

"No, you don't," the Shaman told him bluntly, but not unkindly, "but that doesn't matter." The Shaman's voice drifted off as his eyes clouded over slightly. Mike stared at him, discreetly, for a few seconds realising that whatever memory the Shaman was drawing on was causing him considerable pain.

"… but the 'fortune telling' thing wasn't right then?" He asked quietly, "I take it that your other grandson was killed, or died, later on?"

"No, Captain," the Shaman said through clenched teeth, "he died before he was born."

"What?" Mike hadn't meant for the question to just blurt out like that but he couldn't stop himself. He had thought that he had figured out where the Shaman was going but he hadn't guessed that this is what was coming.

"Do you know that my People believe that everyone that has ever lived," the Shaman suddenly asked, as if out of the blue, "or will ever live, is waiting in the Spirit Realm for their chance at life? We believe that there is an existence before we are born, and after we are dead, and that we all exists as Spirits until it is time to be physically born."

"No," Mike stuttered, "I didn't know that."

"To be accurate we believe that everything – living or not – contains a Spirit and as such we respect everything on the Earth," the Shaman said and then almost shook that thought away, "but that doesn't matter. What does matter is the fact that sometimes Spirits choose not to be born, not to leave the Spirit Realm and walk the Earth as flesh and blood."

"Is this relevant …" Mike started to ask, but was interrupted as the Shaman continued as if he hadn't heard him.

"… and sometimes they don't get the chance," he sighed under his breath, "sometimes they get stuck between Here and There."

"I am sorry, Mr Red-Eagle," Mike said, sharper than he intended, "but I have a lot of work to do and I really don't see what this has to do with the case at hand."

"It has everything to do with this case, Captain Silver," the Shaman stated adamantly, "**everything**! You see when the twins were born we discovered something horrible, something that your modern medicine today would have known much earlier. Something had gone wrong inside my daughter, inside the womb where my grandsons were growing."

"What?" Mike asked, sympathy for the old man making him listen intently once more.

"We … I … didn't know the term for it then," the Shaman admitted quietly, "but when the first child was born we saw that there would be no second. No-one, even today, has been able to tell me why it happened, just that it did."

"What did?" Mike prompted, "what happened?"

"We thought that it was a growth at first, a cancer like the one that had taken my wife from me," the Shaman continued, his voice haunted, " but it wasn't. When they were growing inside my daughter something had happened – perhaps there wasn't enough space for them both, perhaps there wasn't enough sustenance – whatever it was both twins didn't survive. Only one of them did – only Jay did. The other child didn't form properly, or at least started to form and then was …"

The Shaman's voice petered off and Mike glanced up at him and saw tears cascading freely down the older man's face. He didn't know what to do – should he pass him a tissue, should he try to console him – as he was thinking of what to do he was slightly startled as the Shaman continued speaking, his voice strong.

"… subsumed is the term that they used. What should have been two boys became one. What should have been two individuals became one. What should have been two lives became one … just one."

"Fetus in fetu."

Both the Shaman and Mike Silver were startled to hear the unfamiliar voice interrupt them and glanced round to see two men standing in the doorway. With David Johnston was someone unfamiliar to the Shaman but Silver himself knew the speaker well.

"Come in Paul," he said as he waved the two men into the office. "Mr Red-Eagle this is Paul Jenkins, one of the lead criminologists in our crime lab, an expert in DNA."

The Shaman nodded in greeting at the new man as he approached, a gleam in his eyes.

"It is very rare, you know," he continued, excitedly, "less than a hundred cases known about World wide."

"What is?" Mike asked, his confusion evident.

"Fetus in fetu," Jenkins repeated, still not looking away from the Shaman's face, "I already told you that!"

"Yes, you did," Mike admitted calmly, knowing that he had to remain calm with Jenkins. He had worked with the man on many cases and his eccentricity still riled him up. What he couldn't fault, however, was his natural genius for the job. "… but what does it mean?"

"Oh, well in layman's terms," Jenkins stated in a vaguely condescending manner, "it means that one twin enveloped the other … or subsumed as this gentleman put it."

"What?" David Johnston asked in shock, "you mean that one twin ate the other one?"

"Don't be stupid," Jenkins said tersely, "it means literally what I said. One of the foetuses wrapped around the other and made it part of itself. The stronger twin, the survivor if you want, lived while the other one – the weaker of the two – became nothing more than a parasite. It wouldn't have been able to live at all … if you could call its existence 'living'… without remaining connected to its twin."

"What happened next, Mr Red-Eagle?" Mike Silver asked gently, not wanting to know but knowing that he had too – just as he knew that other people gawked at a three-car pile up without really wanting to see the carnage in front of them.

"The hospital removed the … 'parasite'," he stated softly, "and we are able to take Jay home after a few weeks. He was perfectly healthy and even the small scar on his abdomen faded until it was almost unnoticeable."

"That would explain things you know!" Jenkins almost crowed as he slapped the desk in front of him.

"Explain what?" David Johnston asked, completely lost.

"How the DNA from Phoenix's blood didn't match the DNA lifted from Ember's cup, of course," Jenkins stated as if the answer should have been obvious.

"Paul," Mike Silver interjected as he saw David's face start to cloud in rising anger, "why don't you explain it for us, simply and concisely."

"It is simple, Silver," Jenkins reiterated, "you sent Davey here down to get me so that I could listen in on this talk about Greek monsters and missing link in DNA but it is obvious now!"

"It is?" David asked again.

"Of course," Jenkins threw a snide glare at Johnston; "if you had told me that the chimera you were talking about was to do with genetics rather than mythology I could have had this sorted for you much earlier."

"For fuck's sake, you arrogant son of a bitch," Johnston almost shouted, "just tell us what the Hell you are talking about!"

"The DNA lifted from Phoenix's blood and the DNA lifted from Ember were different," Jenkins explained, slowly, knowing that it would annoy Johnston even more, "but they weren't from different people. They were both from the same person … they were both from this Ember guy, or your missing person, Phoenix, if you prefer."

"Paul," Mike said as he ran a hand over his tired eyes, "I have been a cop for a long time and I have never heard of this. It isn't possible!"

"It isn't probable," Jenkins countered, "in fact I have only read about a human chimera … someone who has two sets of chromosomes in his body … never actually seen one myself. Then again I have never met someone who had their frikkin' twin inside them … double jeopardy of the freak world!"

"Jenkins!" Mike shot the reprimand to the other man as the Shaman's eyes clenched in pain at the description of his grandson. "Watch your mouth, you insensitive idiot!"

"Jeez, I am sorry," Jenkins said, no sincerity in his voice, "but you don't understand just how rare this is."

"Well, then," Mike asked pointedly, "why don't you tell me?"

"We are talking about a one in ten million chance, at least, of something like this happening!" Jenkins stated excitedly.

"So," David pointed out, "next to impossible."

"One in fourteen million," the Shaman said quietly, just loud enough to be heard and the three men stopped and stared at him. "One in fourteen million is the chance of winning the lottery, you know, and there have been many people who have done that."

"So, what you are telling me," Silver stated as the facts slowly crept into his brain, "is that the reason that we haven't been able to find your grandson – or link him and Ember together – is because they are the same person. Is that what this is all about, has your grandson flipped out and he is living someone else's life … his dead brother's life?"

"No, Captain Silver, that is not what this is all about," the Shaman said as he leant forward to stare directly into the other man's eyes, locking him their through the intensity of his gaze. "I just wish that it was as 'simple' as that."

Taking a deep breath the Shaman leant forward even more, his voice dropping until it was barely audible.

"In fact it is just the opposite," he whispered, "it is Jay's dead brother living … stealing … his life."

/ / /

To be concluded.


	12. Coda

The ballad of two  
Part eleven - finale  
Coda.

/ / /

Mother Earth and Father Sky,  
Join us as we learn to fly.  
Scorching sun and moon chilled nights,  
Compass points to set my sights  
Upon the golden beacon far  
Which I now know as Shining Star.

Wisdom is the truth I seek,  
Not found on any mountain peak.  
But deep within the sacred heart  
I tread the dance and find the part  
That pillars up and branches out,  
Leaving love in place of doubt.

And that's the answer, clear to me,  
As clearest lake or shining sea.  
We set the circuit, start to place  
The sparks which lock all in its place.  
I'm starting now, no more to roam,  
At last, at last, I'm Going Home.

~Author unknown~

/ / /

"Sorry," Mike Silver stuttered, his brain not quite believing what he was sure that his ears had heard. "You said **what**?"

"I know how it sounds Captain," the shaman stated earnestly, "believe me I do. The fact of the matter is, however, that the person that you know as Ember is nothing more than my grandson being worn like a puppet."

"By your other grandson," Silver interjected in a tone of bemusement, "your _dead_ grandson?"

"Yes, that is correct." The Shaman sat quietly, looking earnestly into the face of the senior policman in front of him. He was well aware, of course, of the incredulous looks shared by David Johnston and Paul Jenkins who stood on his periphery; he even took in the circular motion Jenkins made with one finger towards his forehead. He knew that they no doubt thought that he was crazy. Their thoughts, however, idn't matter. Only the facts did. Only the truth.

"Look, you are asking us to believe a lot already," Silver stated, trying to remain cordial. "You have basically told us that your grandson, Jay Phoenix, not only hasn't been murdered but also hasn't really been a 'missing person' for the last two years because he has been in plain sight as the man known as Ember …"

The Shaman started to interrupt but Mike held up one hand and pointedly continued with what he was saying.

"Let me finish, please," he said, bluntly, his temper beginning to fray, "as ludicrous as someone living under a mask without detection sounds to me, you are now asking us to believe that your grandson had some sort of parasitic twin that he 'killed' in the womb and then absorbed his DNA …"

"Well, that is not quite technically correct …" Paul Jenkins, one of the seniro criminlogists in the crim lab, a specialist in DNA and genetics, interrupted as Mike threw a baleful glare his way, concluding with a sheepish shrug of his shoulders "Close enough, I suppose."

"… and now," Silver bit off through clenched teeth, "you expect me to believe that your grandson's body has been … what … taken over, possessed, by the spirit of that twin brother?"

"Do you really expect me to believe any of that crap?" Slamming both hands on the table Mike Silver glared at the Shaman who, though much smaller than the Captain and seemingly frail, kept his gaze locked on the man. "How the Hell do you expect me to believe in ghosts, in possessions, in spirits coming back from the dead?"

The shaman picked up the photograph that he had left lying on the desk in front of him, the photograph of his grandson when he was only seven years old, and gazed it at as his eyes lost focus and his mind travelled back into his own memories in subconscious response to Mike's barked questions.

/ / /

_A single small fire illuminated the domed building. Shadows played over the thatched roof, the breeze blowing through gaps in the log walls fanning the flames and sending the darkness spiralling around the confines of the room in some weird parody of the dance macabre._

A huddled figure, small and silhouetted by the flames in front of him, sat behind the fire, a leather bound book held in one hand. His features were indistinct, all that could be seen of him was long flowing hair that moved as if with a life of its own thanks to the heat from the flames and the wind from between the gaps in the wood. Low, rumbling chanting came from this figure, atonal yet vibrant. As he, for the voice was high pitched yet obviously masculine, continued with his chanting he placed his hand over the edge of the fire and a stream of powder fell from it. A single word, more a sound than anything discernible, thrummed out from the figure.

"u-yv-tlv"

Over and over the one phrase was repeated and the flames turned gradually blue, dancing slower and almost seeming to stop at moments. As the figure continued to chant his breath was visible, as if the temperature in the lodge had dropped dramatically. His hand fell to his side, and with a pause as breath was gathered he changed the tone, and the word itself.

"ka-lv-gv"

Once more the phrase was repeated though this time as the figure's hand allowed powder to fall into the flames they rose up redder and warmer than before and a haze of heat filled the air in front of the youth. Without stopping for a breath this time he changed the tone again.

"u-ga-no-wa"

The chaotic weaving of the flame slowed, not quite stopping but becoming calmer as they almost seemed to drain of colour until they were mostly white. Lifting up more powder another deep breath was taken in and then expelled in a low, guttural chant. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard, but the youth held it.

"wu-de-li-gv"

Already small, the insides of the lodge become darker and more oppressive as if the shadows themselves were reaching out to enclose everything that they could grasp. The youth paused in his movement, his voice beginning to waver uncertainly, and then he allowed the powder to finally fall into the flames. Instantly they became dark, still writhing but this time almost with a life of their own, malignant and menacing. The chanting choked off as the youth crept back from the flames, his face hidden in the shadows that the dark fire gave off, fear evident from his body language. His back hit the wall and he could go no further, as the flames almost seemed to bend towards him, reaching out, struggling to grab him …

"Great Spirits end this now!"

Light filled the room as a door burst open and a voice, strong and confident, rang out with a power of command. The flames instantly died down, returning to a dim orange and red, nearly burnt out and nothing but embers. A hand reached across them and pulled the figure to his feet. Long auburn hair framed a tanned face as a young man, no more than a boy, stared out with forlorn eyes of piercing green.

"I am sorry grandfat…" he started to say but was cut off as the strong voice interrupted.

"What have you done Hakan," he was asked, the tone of shock unmistakeable, "what have you done?" An older man, long white hair tied back in a neat braid, towered over the youth, pulling him closer with strong and powerful hands, unheeding of the look of pain that shot over the boy's face as his fingers dug into the muscles in his shoulder.

"You were meant to be studying" the older man stated through clenched teeth, "I trusted you and you betrayed that trust!"

"The names of the herbs were boring, grandfather" the youth started to explain, "and besides I didn't think that anything would happen!" The slap that hit him across the face was not powerful; in fact it hardly impacted at all. The fact that he _**had**__ been struck, the fact that the man who loved and protected him had raised his hand at all, suddenly made him aware of just how much he had transgressed._

"Nothing would happen?" the older man asked incredulously, "nothing?" He forced the boy to turn around and stare across the dying flames to a dark section of the room, that moments before had been empty, still shadowed. A small figure … seeming both insubstanital and yet somewhoe real at the same time … could be seen there, huddled in the darkness, staring back out at them with eyes the colour of milk through a curtain of long pale-blonde hair.

"_**Something**__ happened my child," the man whispered, his voice fading and suddenly sounding both old and weary, "something that you are going to have to deal with the consequences of."_

The figure in the shadows didn't move, didn't seem to breathe, but from its mouth came one word, hesitant but unmistakeable.

"G … Gg … Gr … Grandfather?"

/ / /

"I never said that he came back from the dead, Captain," the Shaman reiterated after a few seconds, his memories safely locked back inside. "All I said was that the _creature_ that you know as Ember but who we called … or would have called, had he lived … Kutnahin, had taken possession of my grandson's physical form. The fact that he had never actually 'lived' – as he was dead before he was born – means that his spirit never became mortal."

David Johnston and Paul Jenkins shared a knowing look and the Shaman glanced over his shoulder, glaring at them both and startling the out of their silent mockery.

"I know that you think me a senile old man," he stated simply, no trace of self-consciousness evident in his tone, "but just because **you** do not know something, or do not believe something, does not make it any less real!"

"… but this, though," interjected Mike Silver, "this is going beyond the realms of reality into something right out of a Stephen King novel!"

"No, my child," the Shaman sighed, "this is not a horror story from the minds of man; it is a true tale of horror. My grandson, Jay, made a terrible mistake when he was a child you see. I had begun teaching him the Medicine of our People, the ways of the Spirit and the Totem. I suppose, actually, the mistake was mine. He was still grieving for his parent's, he was still so young, but I thought that by starting him on the path that I had walked it would help him heal. Instead it pushed him into trying something that is forbidden – he tried to summon the spirits of his family back to himself. He failed, of course, as his parents had passed over but he succeeded, in a fashion, because his brother had never done so."

The soft tone of the Shaman's voice was almost hypnotic and none of the other three men in the room interrupted him, though each – inside their own thoughts – thought his tale too outlandish to actually listen to. Listen, though, they did. Intently.

"Jay brought his brother's spirit back to the mortal land, out of the Spirit realm," the Shaman continued softly, "and he became Earthbound. Stuck between here and there. Not alive but not dead. Non-born and yet existing. As he had never actually be born, had never lived or learned simply by living, however, he was wild like the wind, untamed. He was different. … ammoral."

The Shaman looked up and smiled, sadly, at Mike Silver who sat quietly watching him, lips pursed and white.

"He was something else as well," the Shaman admitted with a trace of sorrow, "he was hungry. Hungry for that which he didn't have … couldn't have. Life. Real life."

"I am sorry, Mr Red-Eagle," Mike stated, "but I simply can't believe any of this."

"Are you a man of faith, Captain?" he Shaman suddenly asked as he looked up from the photograph to stared directly into Mike Silver's eyes. "Are you a man of God, perhaps?"

"I … I …" stuttered the Captain, completely caught of guard by the question. Without conscious thought his hand reached up to his chest and, through the material of his fine cotton shirt, he felt the outline of the crucifix that constantly rested there. It had been a present from his wife, many years ago, when he had survived his first gun-shot wound. She had told him, when he awoke, that the doctors had told her that he may not make it but that she had prayed all night for God to save him; for God to leave him with her. She had clutched the crucifix in her hands so hard as to leave an imprint of it that was visible when she placed both hands on his cheeks and kissed him through her tears. From that moment on he had never removed the crucifix; had never lost the faith that his wife had gifted him with.

"Yes, yes I am," he finally admitted, sure of his words. "I don't see what that has to do with anything though …"

"You _believe_ in an all-powerful deity that created everything and sits in judgement above us all," the Shaman interrupted with a small smile, his tone soft, as he purposely stressed the key word, "you _believe_ in an immaculate concpetion and a virgin birth, you _believe_ in a child born to be both Man and God, and you _believe_ that this man not only performed miracles but also died and then rose again; do you not?"

Again the question seemed to catch Mike off-guard and for a few seconds he let the old man's words sink into his mind. He almost seemed to forget that there was anyone else in the room – ignoring Johnston and Jenkins completely – and that a few moments before he had been ready to throw the old man … the senile old man, as he thought … out of his office but now, for some reason, he found that he couldn't.

"Yes," he finally said, quietly, "I do believe that but it is different, it is …" Mike Silver's voice trailed off as he struggled to finish the sentence; as he struggled to find, in his own mind, the argument that would prove the difference. The Shaman, seemingly, did it for him.

"Real?" The Shaman offerred, "proved by the Bible and the Church?"

"Yes," Mike nodded in relief, "exactly."

"So, for you to _believe_ in something," the Shaman asked, one eyebrow arched, "you simply need two thousand years worth of Dogma and a book?" He sat back into his chari, folding his arms and staring pointedly at the Captain who said nothing, lost in his own thoughts.

"Well," the Shaman prompted, "is that what it takes for you to _believe_?"

"No …" Mike started, then stuttered to a stop, changing his mind, "I mean yes …"

"Would it make any difference if I told you that my People's history and beliefs go back longer than your 'Good Book'," the Shaman stated, a hard edge to his tone, "would it make any difference if I told you that our 'religion' has been passed down from generation to generation since before your leaders first thought about stealing other people's beliefs and making them their own?"

The Shaman placed both hands flat on the desk in front of him, leaning forward again so that he was closer to Mike Silver.

"Or are you so brainwashed by your own teachings," he questioned, using his words as a barb, "that the things that you don't understand about my faith, about the Spirits that surround us, are called 'ludicrous', 'magic', or 'unbelievable' while the same things in your own are called miracles, angels or 'faith'?"

The silence in the room was deafening as Mike Silver tried to digest the Shaman's words and reconcile them with a lifetime of teaching. He wasn't able to and as his head started pounding with the early signs of an imminent migraine he stood up and laid a hand on the Shaman's shoulder.

"I don't know what to believe," he admitted with a short sigh, "and that is the honest truth. What I **know** though is that it doesn't really matter as it is not relevent to the case at all, so while I appreciate you coming forward with this information, I don't think that it will help us find your grandson."

"Oh, I didn't actually come here to tell you all of this," the Shaman pointed out quickly, "or to find my grandson; I know exactly where he is." A stunned silence greeted this statement and the shock in the room only increased further as the Shaman smiled and looked pointedly at the Captain.

"I came here to ask a favour."

/ / /

"I don't believe it."

Rick James's breath misted the tinnted window that formed one side of the two-way mirror that looked into the darkened room in which the body of his best friend lay, strapped to a bed and almost unconscious from a cocktail of drugs. Looking through his own reflection, ignoring the red-rimmed eyes and the tracks of recent tears on his face, he stared at the form that lay shrouded underneath a single white sheet – thankful for it as it hid not only the leather straps that kept him restrained but also the bullet wound in his abdomen. A wound that he himself had caused.

"Would you like me to go through it again, my child?" The Shaman asked as he rested a gentle hand on Rick's shoulder, feeling the barely controlled shivers running through the man that he had known since he was a boy as he fought to hold back a flood of tears.

"No," Rick said softly, another cloud of breath misting the window again, "I heard you the first time. I just don't … can't … believe it." Only a few hours previously Rick had been sitting inside the County Jail, wondering how many times the police were going to keep asking him the same questions. Over and over again he told them that he had heard Ember admit to killing Jay Phoenix and over and over again the police told him that they had no proof of that. He even told them that Ember had said that he was Jay's brother but it didn't seem to matter to them that the truth was that Jay didn't have a brother at all. What they were interested in was finding out why he had shot Ember; why he had tried his best to kill Ember. The frustration that Rick felt in not having the policemen belive him when he truthfully told them his reasons was immense.

When his cell door had been opened he had assumed he was in for another lengthy period of questioning and it took him a couple of moments to realise that he was being told that he had been released on bail. When he had picked up his belongings and been escorted to the escort he had almost collpased when he saw who it was that had rescued him, literally. The Shaman had greeted his tears with a tight hug, holding him close for many seconds and letting him babble into his ear. Time after time Rick told the Shaman that he knew what had happened to Jay, that he knew who had killed him, and time after time the Shaman simply patted his back and told him not to worry, that everything was ok.

The drive to the hospital, while the Shaman had calmly explained the truth of the matter – the truth of the duality of Ember and Jay Phoenix – had been a nightmare. It was simply too unbelievable, too bizarre, for Rick's brain to comprehend. Jay hadn't been missing; Ember hadn't killed him?

Jay **was** Ember?

It simply couldn't be. It couldn't.

He had been telling himself that right up until the moment that he had been shown into the monitoring area of the room where Ember … Jay … rested. The content of Rick's stomach were impossible to contain as he glanced through the mirror and saw his best friend there. He barely made it to a small waste basket in the corner before his meagre breakfast came back. He wasn't sure if it was the shock of seeing his friend lying there alive, thankfully alive, after thinking that he was dead that affected him the most or realising tow facts. Two horrible facts.

For the last two years Jay had been living someone else's life; if the Shaman was to be believed … and Rick had no reason to doubt him, and being brought up on the reservation for most of his life had seen enough of the shamanistic medicine to know that it was defintely possible … Jay actually hadn't even been living his life. He had been 'taken over', for want of a better word, by a malevolent – an evil – spirit. By the spirit of his own twin.

… but more than that, worse than that, Rick himself had very nearly killed him himself!

Resting his head on the mirror, cherishing the coolness against his skin, he felt the tears flow freely again but didn't try to stop them.

"How did you find him?" Rick asked quietly. For two years, since Jay had first 'disappeared', they had spent a lot of time and resources in trying to find out what had happened to him. Whatever it was they weren't even able to find a trace, a hint, of where he had gone. Until now.

"That would have been thanks to me."

Rick saw two forms reflected in the window in front of him as the voice spoke, and he turned slowly around to come fact to face with a man that he recognised as Ember's laywer and someone that he had never seen before but knew to be a doctor simply by his garb.

"What the Hell is he doing here?" Rick growled through clenched teeth as he made a move towards the laywer, fists closing. The Shaman stepped between the two men and held up a calming hand to Rick.

"It is thanks to him, Rick," the Shaman acknowledged, "that we have found Jay. He called me."

"… but he is the one that stopped the police from questioning Ember," Rick countered in confusion, "I mean Jay. If it wasn't for him we could have had Jay back weeks or months ago!"

"True," the laywer, John Sinclair, admitted with a small smile, "but if it wasn't for me you wouldn't have him back at all, old bean." The Shaman had to physically hold Rick back as he tried to grab hold of the laywer but after a few seconds of struggling he visibly wilted, turning back to the mirror and staring through it into the room beyond.

"The past is gone," the Shaman stated simply, "and no matter what this man did in the past he has brought us together again."

"I was just following my client's instructions, you know," Sinclair pointed out.

"You mean that you knew who Ember actually was all along?" Rick asked quietly without turning around.

"I knew who he was, yes," the English man admitted, "but I wasn't being paid to question why he wanted to wear a mask and call himself by a silly name."

"What were you being paid for, Mr Sinclair?" the Shaman asked, coldly.

"Oh that is simple," Sinclair beamed, "to protect his interests of course. To protect him, I suppose you could say."

"Protect him," the Shaman asked in confusion, "protect him from who?"

"Anybody … everybody," Sinclair stated simply, "but most especially you actually."

"Me?" The Shaman said in shock, as Rick turned around to gape at the two men. "Why on Earth would my grandson need protecting from me?"

"Simple, old man, he said that you were going to kill him."

/ / /

"I am sorry to interrupt this scintillating conversation," the doctor suddenly interjected, breaking the strained silence, "but if you don't mind I have my patient to see to." Moving across the room the doctor started to open a door that led into the next room, as seen through the mirror, but was stopped by Rick's question.

"Is he going to be ok, doctor?" Leaving the door partially open the doctor turned to look at the ashen-faced man.

"Sorry, are you family?" he asked, business-like.

"Not exactly …" Rick started to admit but was cut off by the doctor's reply.

"Well then," he said tersely, "then I don't 'exactly' have to tell you anything." He turned back to the door and pulled it open but was stopped yet again.

"I, however," the Shaman said in a cold voice, "am family. I am his grandfather so you can tell me how my grandson is!" With a sigh the doctor closed the door over and faced the three men in the room, pointing to each of them in turn.

"You I know, you are this man's lawyer," he said as he indicated Sinclair, "you however have already admitted that you are not family and you," he said, finally nodding towards the Shaman after bypassing Rick, "are claiming to be his grandfather. This is already one of the weirdest cases I have had to deal with and I am really not in the mood for any more insanity!"

"I am not claiming to be his grandfather," the Shaman pointed out, "I am his grandfather." Taking his wallet out he first showed the doctor his driving licence and then a couple of photos. The first showed Jay Phoenix as a child, the second – much more recent – as a recognisable adult.

"Well the fact that you are his grandfather lets me know two things," the doctor acknowledged with a nod, "the first being that I can let you know that your grandson is actually in pretty good condition. Physically at least. While he was crazy enough to attempt to stitch a bullet wound himself – with the bullet still inside no less – and then enter some ludicrous wrestling match with copious blood loss and a nasty infection in the wound he was lucky. Very lucky. We managed to remove the bullet, clean up the wound, and stem the blood loss and infection. So, like I said, physically he is doing pretty good."

"…but?" Rick asked quietly.

"Yes, there is a but," the doctor admitted, deigning to answer Rick's question, "while his physical state is good the same cannot be said for his mental state. The medical term for what your grandson is suffering from is a 'psychotic break' … though considering the intensity of his delusions and psychosis I think that it is not such much a break as a complete and utter fracture. His mind is shattered."

"Oh my God," Rick whispered, barely audible, "how did it happen?"

"Or," the doctor continued, pointedly ignoring Rick's anguish, "to quote your lawyer friend here, 'he is completely crazy!' As for how it happened I can't tell you that with one hundred percent certainty but an MRI that we took showed signs of a small area of damage on the right frontal lobe – possibly from blunt impact in the last few years. It could be that or it could be psychological stress that his mind simply couldn't cope with … you guys would know better than me if he went through anything before this 'episode' that could have been too much for him to handle. So it could be physical damage, it could be psychological trauma, or it could be both. Either way his mind is broken."

Rick slumped down into one of the chairs and held his face in his hands as soft, dry sobs racked his body. He knew that Phoenix had suffered headshots during his career, even serious concussions. He also remembered, clearly, the last night that he had seen him; the night before the match that should have taken place against Dave Hurst. A mirrored sign had fallen from a restaurant and hit Jay in the head, knocking him out cold. When he had come too he had acted a little strange, but Rick had passed it off as nothing serious.

… what, though, if he was wrong? What, though, if something as small, as simple, as stupid as a mirror hitting him on the head and been the first step to this problem? The Shaman, however, faced up to the doctor and stared at him, balefully.

"… and just what," he demanded, "do you base this diagnosis on?"

"Apart from many years experience, over two weeks of treating your grandson and a battery of tests you mean?" the doctor replied, sarcastically.

"Have you considered that there could be another reasons for his behaviour?" The Shaman questioned.

"Another reason?" the doctor mused, then shrugged his shoulder, "I can't say that I have. Do you have something you want to tell me?"

"My grandson isn't suffering from brain damage," the Shaman stated with confidence, "and he isn't suffering from a mental breakdown either. He has been possessed by a malevolent spirit and …"

"… and now I see that his problem runs in the family," the doctor interrupted with a sneer. "Now if you and your little ghost stories could excuse me I have work to do. In a couple of hours you will be able to thank me and forget all about this ludicrous 'spirit' stuff!" Walking into Jay's room the doctor picked a syringe up off a silver tray that rested on the table beside the bed. He took a vial of clear liquid out of his pocket and measured out a dose, pushing the air out through the needle before tapping the prone man's arm a few times to raise a vein.

"What are you doing?" the Shaman asked from just behind him. The doctor turned around with a small smile as he held up the syringe.

"This, my friend," he stated, "is pretty much a miracle waiting to happen. It has proved very useful in cases like this in trials recently and I think that it can break your grandson right out of his delusion."

"What does it do?" The Shaman asked, a note of concern creeping into his voice as the word 'trials' filtered into his head.

"Oh, that is simple," the doctor stated, "it affects the receptors of the brain and blocks the parts that cause the delusions and psychosis; it stops the other personas basically. Or, to put it simply, it 'kills' the 'spirits' that are haunting your grandson." The doctor laughed at his own joke and started to turn back to his patient. The Shaman, with a quick grasp of his arm, stopped him dead.

"How does this drug know," the old man asked insistently, "which persona to destroy."

"Again, that is simple," the doctor said as he pressed a buzzer beside the bed, "it works on the bodies DNA and the principle that the prime personality is the right one. Anything else is subsumed."

Two orderlies arrived at the door, summoned by the buzzer, and the doctor indicated that they should take the Shaman out of the room. Taking him be each arm they dragged him out of the room and stood between him and the open doorway as all he could do was stare in horror as the doctor pressed the syringe into Jay's arm and pumped the clear liquid deep into his vein.

/ / /

"We don't have long, every passing second could be one too many!"

The Shaman stood in front of Rick James and stared deeply into the young man's eyes, the natural light from the moon illuminating the grounds of the hospital where they had run to. A few minutes ago they had watched in horror as a doctor had pumped an experimental drug into Jay Phoenix's arm – a drug that was designed to work based on DNA to stop trauma-induced psychosis in a patient. They both knew, though, that due to Jay's unique genetic heritage, and the fact that he was actually possessed by a Native American spirit … that of his own non-born twin brother … that the drug would, in all likelihood, kill Phoenix. Not physically, but something even worse. They both feared that the drug would leave the personality they knew as Ember in charge of the body; Phoenix would be gone. Forever.

"Are you sure that you want to do this?" the Shaman asked, concern evident in his voice.

"I don't even know what I am going to be doing," Rick admitted, "but I trust you and if you say this will help Jay then I will do it."

"It is dangerous, Rick, "the Shaman pointed out, "if anything goes wrong you could be lost in there forever. You would, for all intents and purposes, be dead."

As soon as the Shaman had seen the drug administered to his grandson he had grabbed Rick and with a quick whisper to John Sinclair, Ember's former lawyer, he had pulled him outside the building. Panting as they ran he explained to Rick that there was still a chance to help Jay; to save Jay. Most of what the Shaman said didn't make sense to Rick. He had been brought up on the reservation but he was till a white man, still an outsider. What the Shaman suggested ventured deep into the realm of spirituality; into the realm of magic. Rick wasn't sure if he totally believed in it but he knew two things. The Shaman and Jay did and if it had a chance – no matter how small – of helping his friend he would do it.

"I don't care, grandfather," Rick said softly, using the honorific for the old man that Jay had always used, "it is worth the chance for Jay." The Shaman held Rick by both shoulders, staring into his eyes as tears misted them over. He saw the love shining there, deep, pure and true, and knew that Rick would indeed do anything for Jay. With a quick movement he slammed his fist into Rick's forehead and as the night sky was replaced with bright shining stars, and then complete darkness, Rick James slumped into unconsciousness.

"Forgive me my child," the Shaman whispered as he knelt over the prone form and started to chant and hum under his breath as he held one palm above Rick's face, "but it was the quickest way to get you into the Dreaming."

/ / /

"Shaman?"

Rick James looked around the grey landscape, turning full circle as he tried to figure out what had just happened. He remembered talking to Jay's grandfather, promising to do whatever it took to help … to save … Jay's life and then there was a moment of dazzling white followed by jet blackness, and then …

… this.

Everywhere he looked there was nothing. Literally. Dull grey dust seemed to coat the ground below his feet and a grey sky was filled with grey, lacklustre, clouds. The horizon was bare and empty and deep within himself Rick felt empty. He felt lost. He felt despair.

The Shaman's words, as they ran out of the hospital into the grounds, came back to him.

"I can send you into the Dreaming, Rick, I can send you into Jay's dream itself. You will be inside his mind, you will see what he sees, and you will feel what he feels."

Looking around him, seeing and feeling the utter desolation, Rick felt hot tears sting his eyes as he realised that it had worked. He was inside his best friend's mind.

… and it was filled with nothing but loss, pain and despair.

"Well, well, well, fancy meeting you here!"

Rick spun around and came face to face with the black mask of Ember. He took a step backwards in uncontrolled shock and then paused, forcing himself to stand still despite the shaking … the fear … that had overtaken his body. For, tightly grasped in Ember's hand, like nothing more than a rag doll, hung a limp and naked Jay Phoenix. Rick knew that it wasn't completely real, that Ember was nothing more than a spirit that didn't know enough to stay dead but he also knew that it wasn't completely a dream either.

"Being in the Dreaming is not like having a dream, Rick," The Shaman had warned him, "if you get hurt there – if you get killed there – it can be fatal."

"Let him go, Kuthanin," Rick pleaded, trying to keep his voice strong – and failing, "please, give him back to me."

"Give him back to you," Kuthanin … the man known as Ember … mocked, "You sound like a love-lorn girl, Ricky!" Rick's face flushed in embarrassment but he squared his shoulders and refused to step back.

"Oh my," laughed Ember, "that is it isn't it? All these years watching from a distance and I never noticed and I know that my dear 'brother' here didn't either! You love him, don't you? Not like a brother, not like a friend … you actually **love** him, don't you?!"

Ember shook the lifeless form of Phoenix, which elicited a whimper from both him and Rick at the same time.

"Well as sweet as that is, you sick faggot," Ember growled, "it doesn't matter anymore anyway. I don't know what is going on out there but I can feel myself getting stronger and Jay here getting even weaker than he always was. It looks like I win … I **finally** win!"

With a shriek of despair Rick threw himself at Ember, hoping to catch him by surprise, hoping to knock him off his feet and force him to drop Phoenix perhaps. Whatever it was that he hoped he failed. With barely any effort Ember simple grabbed him, single handed, out of the air and held him aloft by his throat. Rick's eyes started to bulge, his tongue protruding, as Ember slowly started to squeeze his throat and stop the air from flowing.

"Two birds with one stone," Ember laughed, "not only do I get to watch my brother die just as he watched me die all those years ago but I get to take his little 'love' out at the same time! That is precious … that is simply …"

"… NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!"

Ember's eyes gaped as a naked arm suddenly reached up and enfolded his own hand within its grasp. Looking down he saw a barely conscious Jay Phoenix trying to stand up on his own, barely having enough strength to do so, but – somehow – having enough strength to force Ember's hand away from Rick's throat. Inch by inch, moment by moment, the battle between them waged but Rick found first that he was able to catch a breath, and then was able to move. With a burst of effort he broke free from Ember's clutches and crumpled in the sand as he watched Ember suddenly bring both hands up to choke Phoenix; Jay's hands, at the same time, closed around Ember's own throat.

Catching his breath Rick could do nothing but watch in despair as Jay's knees started to buckle, as his arms started to waver. Ember crowed in delight and pushed the advantage, forcing Jay down to the grey dust.

"Jay," whimpered Rick, almost inaudibly, "don't leave me, please"

Even though he couldn't have heard Rick's whisper Jay suddenly glanced his way, his piercing green eyes moist with tears and with a shriek of effort he suddenly forced himself back to his feet, bending Ember backwards and then finally into the dust himself. His naked body glistened with sweat, every muscle corded with tension, as he strained with every fibre of his being to defeat the man … the thing … that had stolen his life for two years. Before Rick's eyes he saw Ember's form waver, becoming more and more insubstantial, until finally Jay collapsed to the ground, his hands clasped around nothing more than a thin layer of latex.

Ember's mask.

Rick rushed to his side, pulling him up into his arms and crushing him against his chest.

"Jay," he almost screamed, "you did it, you won!!" Tears filled Rick's eyes and Jay's body blurred in front of him. With a frantic cry Rick realised that Jay's breathing was becoming shallow, was becoming laboured, and he crushed his body against his own as if he could hold onto him.

"Rick," Jay whispered, his voice little more than a breath, "I'm sorry … I lov …" Rick suddenly realised that he was holding nothing, that he was alone in the fields of grey and he cried out in despair …

/ / /

… and woke up lying on the grass outside the hopsital. Ignoring the Shaman's outstrectched hand he pushed himself to his feet and ran to the side of the hospital, banging on the emeergency exit and pushing past it as John Sinclair opened it from the inside.

The two orderlies were big, they were well trained, and they were no match for him. Knocking them out of the way, not watching as they collided against the wall on either side of the door into Jay's room but instead fuly foccussed on the form that lay there and the line on the monitor.

A line that scrolled across the screen, completely flat.

Pushing the stunned doctor out of the way Rick grabbed Phoenix's still body, ignoring the immobility of his chest as he pushed his lips against Jay's own. With every ounce of his being he breathed into his friend's mouth … his love's mouth … and prayed to anyone that would listen to not take him away. Again he pressed his lips onto the still mouth and breathed deep into his body, trying to use his own spirit, his own soul, to keep the other one with him. He heard the panicked voices behind him and knew that he doctor and the orderlies were only seconds away from interferring and so with a quick intake of breath he pressed his lips against Jay's and breathed out.

… and realised that his breath was being returned. For a split second he stopped moving, his lips still pressed against Jay's own, and then opened his eyes. He had been too afraid to look, as he tried to breath life back into the lifeless, in case the last thing that he saw was Jay's face in death but now that he did he saw Jay's own eyes staring back at him.

As the orderlies pulled him away he was left with the image of a pair of bright green eyes looking at him, and the emotion that filled him as he realised that the kiss of life had – at the last moment – turned into something else.

Something more.

/ / /

**Two days later**

"I still don't really understand what happened you know." David Johnston said as he looked out of the window and watched Jay Phoenix, Rick James and the Shaman getting into a car on the street below.

"Don't sweat it kid," Joey Russo said simply, "if even half of what Mikey told me is the truth then we will never figure it out."

"… and that is it then," David queried, "that is it over?"

"Well it seems that Ember's …erm I mean Phoenix's I suppose … Lawyer is even better than his reputation. There will be no charges against Phoenix for anything and Rick James will serve a suspended sentence." Joey said, a small growl in his tone.

"… and don't forget, you get your badge back" David pointed out. It had been part of the bargain, Joey knew, that Mike and the lawyer had come up with. The case would be closed, everyone would walk away happy, and Joey came off suspension. Neat and simple. Joey hated it completely but knew that he couldn't do a thing about it.

"That is about that only thing that I do belive in all of this, kid."

"…and what about those two?" he asked indicating down at Rick James and Phoenix as they stood staring at each other bseid the car, neither one looking comfortable. Joey Russo smiled, slightly, and then slapped David on the shoulder.

"It is like watching and old Country and Western love song come to life; the only problem is that while it is meant to be a ballad of two only one of them is singing along."

/ / /

Fin~

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**Notes: **

1. The poem, 'Going Home' has no known author so I can't credit him or her.

2. Flashback scene from GTT5.

3. Thank you to everyone that took the time to read … and judge in some cases … this whole tale, it has been a long time coming (over two years in the making). I hope that you enjoyed reading it even a fraction of the enjoyment (and headache GRIN) I got writing it!


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